


Fractured Fallout

by IrenkaFeralKitty



Series: All Hands On [7]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Distna Feels, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, My take on omegaverse, Omegaverse, Pack Building, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Post-Battle of Distna, mention of suicidal thoughts, omegas with vaginas, omegaverse delta, omegaverse gamma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-01-23 19:01:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18555871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrenkaFeralKitty/pseuds/IrenkaFeralKitty
Summary: The fallout from the Battle of Distna continues to tear at the Rogue Squadron pack.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Come suffer with me.

Snapping the speeder door closed, Luke glanced up at Artoo sitting plugged in to the controls. “Back to the Palace,” he said in a tense voice.

The droid let out a worried mechanical warble and the speeder gracefully took off, aiming for the pass-through that would let them rise up to the surface levels of Coruscant.

Taking a deep breath, Luke turned his attention back to Wes. The scent of a flash heat was rapidly filling the small enclosed space. Rather than letting the intense wave of lust to overcome him, Wes was huddled in on himself, head hanging low and his eyes squeezed shut. Tremors shook his frame and an intense sense of loss, pain, and barely controlled panic screamed out at Luke through both the Force and their packbond, weakened though it was by Luke’s long absence.

Luke slid closer to him and managed to slide an arm behind his back, but Wes was so lost in his own head he barely registered the embrace. He had to take a moment to breathe, focusing on gathering up the anger welling up inside him so he could release it into the Force. Wes needed a friend and a packmate. Not an avenging Jedi.

After gnawing on his lower lip for a few moments, Luke dug into one of the inner pockets of his robe and located his datapad. Working slowly with one hand, Luke composed a simple message for the other members of the Rogue pack… or at least, the members he knew about.

_I know things have been difficult lately and much of it out of your control, but the degree to which you have kriffed things up is absurd. Wes will be with me for now. Use that time to consider how to fix this. -Luke_

The next message was for Leia and it went into more detail about what had happened and why he was going to be unavailable for the foreseeable future. After a moment’s consideration, he copied Han and Chewie as well. It would just be awkward if any of them stopped by. Hopefully this would help prevent that.

Lastly, he sent a note to Ackbar at Starfighter Command stating that he was helping the Rogues settle back in following the business with the clone of Ysanne Isard and that they’d need some additional time off than what had originally been scheduled.

He was careful not to imply that he was involved as a Jedi. After all, this was pack business.

Luke had never officially left the Rogue pack. He had drifted away from it, but he could, and did, stop by whenever he could. The others had never once turned him away and their packbond flared back to life shortly after he sank into the comforting presence of his oldest and closest friends. He had always been comforted by the knowledge that he would always have his Rogues.

It was a shame he felt like bludgeoning most of them upside the head right now.

The trip to the Imperial Palace was mercifully short. Leaving Artoo to return the vehicle to the speeder pool, Luke guided Wes to his small suite buried high in one of the many towers of the palace. For once, he shamelessly, and ruthlessly, wielded his Force powers, blurring his and Wes’s presence to any sentient they came across so that they passed unnoticed.

This wasn’t anyone else’s business and definitely not something he wanted to reach the sludge news media moguls.

Wes sagged visibly when they entered Luke’s sparse quarters. The lights activated, but cast only a dim light. The few furnishings in the suite were soft and comfortable, and almost uniformly made of complementary muted colors, all purposely chosen to contrast with the riot of colors and textures that filled the hallways of the palace. And in this quiet, comforting space, Wes let himself fall apart.

Luke caught his shoulder as Wes crumpled in on himself, looking tired, hurt, and stressed. Tears were flowing freely now and a pained whimper escaped his lips. On top of that, the flash heat had fully set in, causing a flush to spread across his face as his core temperature rose. Wes twisted around, pressing close to Luke. He trembled, need coursing almost uncontrollably through him even as he mourned the pack he felt had been stripped away from him again.

Again, Luke felt a surge of anger which he had to release into the Force. That emotion wasn’t just a path of the Dark Side, it was actively counterproductive and could even hurt Wes should he get even a whiff of that negative emotion. Wes was teetering on the edge of a knife. One push and he’d shatter for good.

Luke wrapped his arms around him, letting his own familiar omega scent provide what comfort it could. He did kiss Wes, but it was soft and gentle. He was no alpha, beta, or another presentation to mindlessly rut against Wes’s leg or clutch at him with a tight grip. They were omegas and when it was just them, things tended to be far more gentle.

“Let’s get you comfortable,” Luke murmured against Wes’s mouth. Still distressed, Wes let himself be led through the living space to the bedroom. Luke stripped them both down, taking care to use a light touch, then tugged Wes down onto the bed with him.

Wes buried his face in a pillow, taking in Luke’s scent. His shoulders continued to shake as he struggled to stop crying. The Jedi, meanwhile, made sure to press up against Wes’s side, reassuring him that, unlike earlier, he wasn’t alone.

When Wes surfaced for air, Luke was there, waiting patiently. “I’ve got you,” Luke said softly “Just let go. I’ll be here with you the whole time.” He smiled, gently stroking Wes’s cheek. The reassurance continued to flow until Wes’s tears finally dried up and the anguish had eased somewhat.

Only then did Luke lean in and kiss him again, this time with a little more heat and a little more pressure. Omega though he was, Luke wasn’t immune to the heat scent Wes was putting off and he made no effort to hide his increasing desire.

Groaning, Wes returned the kiss. The heat coursing through him was helping to wash away his grief in the face of primal biological needs. Soon enough, Luke had Wes wrapped up in a tight embrace as he poured as much love and desire through the packbond as he could.

Right now, Wes was hurting very badly and Luke would do anything to help him. When they parted again, Wes stared up at Luke with vulnerable eyes before offering him a shaky smile.

Under the circumstances, Luke was honored by Wes’s trust. Leaning down, he kissed him again. They would take all the time they needed.


	2. Chapter 2

A few weeks earlier, Hobbie would have sworn that there could never be a moment worse than the day Wes died in battle.

He’d been wrong.

Collapsing down on their oversized bed, Hobbie stopped fighting the darkness that always lurked in the back of his head. He knew the packbonds they shared with Wes had been weakened by the ambush at Distna and the months they’d spent in Isard’s clutches and doing her bidding. The scent of fear and panic mixed in with the heat scent in the bedroom made him think that the fragile bond they’d started to rebuild may have utterly shattered.

They hadn’t done it on purpose, but it had happened all the same. They’d let themselves get too caught up in other matters to notice what was happening under their own noses. Hobbie didn’t deserve happiness, not after what they’d done.

There were so many little fiddly things that needed to be completed for the Rogues could return to duty that none of them had given much thought to leaving Wes alone that morning when he’d seemed to be sleeping in.

Wedge had left first for a meeting with Admiral Ackbar, then Tycho so he could speak with various officials in Starfighter Command to start looking at rebuilding their squadron’s resources. Hobbie himself hadn’t had any specific duties that required immediate attention but their food stores were low and he’d wanted to replenish their supplies so they could just relax for the next few days. He hadn’t intended to be gone long.

Everything backfired in the worst possible way.

While on his way to one a cafe to pick up some pastries for Wes, his datapad alerted him to an urgent message. A durasteel weight had lodged itself in his stomach once he read the message.

Pastries forgotten, Hobbie raced back to the apartment and as soon as he stepped inside, he smelled it. Heat scent. Not the rich scent of a regular heat that took its time to build and spread through the area, but the almost scorched, yet still enticing, scent of a flash heat.

Unlike the heat Tycho had experienced in Isard’s hidden base, there had been no one with Wes when it had begun to rage inside him.

Someone had always been with Wes during his heats in the past, even if it was just Hobbie. It had been that way for almost a decade. But with a weakened packbond, waking up alone as his body began to burn with need had clearly been damaging. Worse still, matters between them were still unsettled.

Their reunion a few days earlier had been full of tears and joy at being together again, but there had also been a sense of distance, of something feeling off.

Superficially, everything had been fine. They’d embraced, had sex, stuffed too many bodies into the shower, and ate meal and after meal together. They’d all been so relieved to have Wes with them and showered him with affection whenever they could.

But night after night, either Hobbie or Tycho or Wedge would wake up to find him lying tense beside them, staring up at the dark ceiling. Every now and then during the day, they caught a glimpse of worry and discomfort on his face before he hid it behind a cheery mask.

Something was wrong and no matter what they did, they couldn’t seem to fix it.

Tycho and Wedge returned to the housing unit at the same time, having linked up at Starfighter Command. They found Hobbie still lying morosely on the bed. The more pleasant scents from the past few days were buried under the stench of Wes’s terror.

“We kriffed things up so bad the Force brought Luke back to step in,” Hobbie said staring at the ceiling. “It’s all over.”

“No, it’s not,” Wedge said firmly. “We can fix this.”

“How?” Tycho asked uneasily.

Wedge hesitated.

“It’s not just missing a flash heat,” Tycho said. Guilt spread through him and he dropped down onto the bed. “Something’s been wrong ever since we came back. The flash heat just made it impossible to ignore anymore.”

“We just needed time-” Wedge began.

“Tycho’s right,” Hobbie interrupted, reluctantly pushing himself upright. “We can’t pretend otherwise. Wes had been walking on eggshells around us since we got back and we’ve been pretending we haven’t been doing the same. We told ourselves we just needed time but it was more than that.”

“He hasn’t wanted to touch me. He’s tried to hide it, but it was hard not to notice.” Tycho cringed at the memory of the wild look that had filled Wes’s eyes the first night back when he’d gotten close. He’d hung back as soon as he’d seen it, but it hurt to see fear in his eyes. Even after _Lusankya_ , no one had looked at him that way.

“He hid away every time Gavin and Inyri came by, too,” Hobbie added.

“We changed the pack, Wedge. We changed it without him and that hurt him. And now, with this flash heat, he must think we’ve fully abandoned him.”

Wedge ran his hands through his hair, his expression pained. For a moment, he closed his eyes, nostrils flaring as he inhaled the awful scents in the room. “We kriffed up,” he finally said. “But Luke thinks it’s fixable and he knows more about what’s going on than we do.”

“Wes thinks we abandoned him,” Tycho repeated. He rolled onto his side, resting his head against Hobbie’s leg. “Words alone aren’t going to fix that.”

“We can make amends,” Wedge insisted.

“But how can we-”

“We can and we will!”

Tycho flinched at the sudden roar and instinctively cowered. After several heart pounding moments, Tycho heard cursing and then both Hobbie and Wedge were bending over him, offering comfort.

“I’m sorry,” Wedge said, sounding stricken, then repeated it until Tycho finally began to uncurl.

It was hard to stop shaking. Tycho dug his fingers into the coverlet and tried to focus on breathing. Wedge’s shout echoed through his head, the flash of anger feeling magnified ten times over as it screamed through the packbond. It hadn’t been aimed at him but that didn’t seem to matter. It hadn’t since Distna.

“I hate this,” Tycho finally whispered when his heart had stopped racing and his terror finally eased off. He pressed harder against Hobbie’s leg and tried to focus on the soothing feeling of his packmates’ hands gently touching him. “The packbonds are so kriffing loud. I can’t stop feeling everything you do. It’s too much. I can’t keep carrying all this.”.

“Wes used to carry that weight,” Hobbie said quietly. “It was different for him, didn’t bother him. He told me once he liked knowing where everyone was and if something was wrong.”

“You’re not weaker for having more trouble with this than Wes,” Wedge said softly. “You and he are just different. “ He bowed his head. “I’m sorry I shouted. It’s just… We need him. And he needs us. We kriffed things up but we can fix it. We will fix it. I don’t know how yet but we will. I don’t want to lose him again.”

Tycho nodded, eyes drifting shut. He wanted Wes back, had grieved for him and missed him after the battle at Distna. Wes was _theirs,_  their friend, their wingmate, their packmate. Wes had brought them together and losing him had felt like the beginning of the end for them all.

After the battle and the revelation that Isard had survived, Tycho had felt everything start fracturing. Wes had held him together for years after Alderaan, reacting to his changes in mood like lightning and nudging the pack into action when the pain of Tycho’s lost world began to eat away at him.

He’d experienced losing Wes once already when he’d been captured by Isard, but the hope of returning to him and their pack had been the sole thing keeping him going through his time on the _Lusankya_ and imprisonment on Akrit-tar. He’d continued to cling to that hope when he returned to the New Republic and joined Wedge in reforming the Rogues, forbidden by New Republic Intelligence to do anything to repair the damage to his packbonds while still under suspicion of being one of Isard’s sleeper agents.

He’d survived the separation and suspicion. He’d rebonded with Wedge, then Luke, after their his trial. When Hobbie returned to the Rogues, it had been literal days before they were willing to separate.

Wes had been the final missing piece for far too long, but when he finally left Wraith Squadron behind, they’d finished the work of repairing their packbond started months earlier. Those days after the Rogues liberated Thyferra were precious to him and the memory of the long separation that had preceded it still hurt to think about.

And then the Battle of Distna happened.

None of the Rogues slept well the first few nights in Isard’s hidden base. The Rogue pack was especially suffering, as they all felt like they’d lost everything when Wes died and was left drifting frozen in the merciless void of space.

Then, on the fifth night without Wes, Tycho jerked awake in the middle of the night soaking wet with slick and filled with an almost mindless need to be fucked.

The Rogues slept in close quarters with connected air systems and the scent of his flash heat awoke every single human nearby. Inyri appeared soon after, practically dragging Gavin along with her. He was falling apart without Asyr and the snide comments from some of the former Imperial pilots and crew about indulging in so-called beastiality had brought him close to attacking their supposed allies far too many times. He hovered outside the door, wanting but also fearing the comfort being offered. In the end, he let Inyri lead him into the room and they both became pack.

The happily pair bonded Corran and Myn, along with Ooryl and Nrin, guarded their door over the next thirty-six hours, passing supplies into them as needed and making sure no one harassed them when any of them briefly left to use the refresher.

When the flash heat ended, the pack was stable. Mostly. At the very least, the ground no longer felt like it was about to collapse out from under them. Gavin had packbonds to draw on when his assigned TIE Defender tech made a crude comment about Asyr and Hobbie had new pack members to help him keep from drowning in depression. Tycho, meanwhile, had extra layers of security keeping Isard as far away from him as possible. Her presence had awoken long buried memories from _Lusankya_ that filled him his sleep with nightmares.

As time went on, though, Tycho had begun to feel like he was struggling to carry the entire pack on his shoulders.

Inyri was on hyper alert for an attack from Vessery or his forces, barely sleeping enough to function and constantly snarling at anyone who crossed her. Gavin forced himself to train and prepare to infiltrate Ciutric IV but was handicapped by the pain of Asyr’s death. Hobbie lurched from one mental health crisis to the next and Wedge was nearly coming apart at the seams as he tried to manage the pack, the squadron, training in the TIE Defenders, and figuring out Isard’s true intentions and how to counter them all at the same time.

Tycho had always been dedicated to ensuring his packmates and fellow pilots took care of themselves but the change in pack had turned that dedication into a desperate, burning need. Simply making sure the others ate, slept, and bathed on a regular basis took over his waking moments. He cajoled Gavin and Hobbie into action, kept Inyri from attacking the TIE pilots, and forced Wedge to rest whenever he could. Then he had to worry about Myn, Corran, Ooryl ,and Nrin who were also dealing with the losses they’d suffered at Distna and worrying about Isard’s secret plans.

Oh, and he had to make sure he himself was eating, training, and not running away screaming anytime Isard visited them.

It was exhausting. And it took far too long for him to realize that Wes used to do all this pack and squadron management without a word of complaint.

Without Wes, they were breaking. He’d truly been their anchor and losing that was almost as horrible as losing him. They was coping for now but none of them had any illusions about the pack lasting much longer past their current mission.

They successfully overthrew Prince-Admiral Krennel, rescued the _Lusankya_ prisoners, and returned triumphant to the New Republic. They’d reunited with Wes, hoping they were repairing this most crucial of packbonds only for it all to shatter before them.

Even now, Hobbie’s misery and depression were eating away at Tycho’s mind and Wedge’s distress tasted like sour fruit in his mouth. Gavin and Inyri were drawing closer to them and Tycho couldn’t help but despair at the thought of having to explain what had happened to them.

They’d been pack for almost a decade. They were supposed to know what they were doing.  Instead, they’d seemingly destroyed the thing they wanted most and had no plan on how to fix it.

The unit’s door chime suddenly sounded, once, twice, then paused before sounding again. Cursing, Wedge pushed away from the bed and disappeared to go answer it.

After the bedroom door slid shut, the room fell quiet. Tycho focused on the gentle caress of Hobbie’s hands across his back and arm. Hobbie was familiar and safe. For a moment, he could block out the frightened scents Wes had left behind and focus solely on Hobbie and the unspoken promise of safety. Slowly, he relaxed and the wordless voice screaming for him to _keep the pack together_ quieted down.

When he opened his eyes, he found Hobbie watching him, his expression calm and controlled. That loosened the final knot in his chest and he could finally push himself upright.

“That’s probably Gavin and Inyri,” Hobbie said. “This is roughly when they’ve been coming by the past few days. Wedge will need our help.”

“It is,” Tycho replied. He could feel their younger packmates hovering outside the housing unit, full of nerves, hope, and curiosity. “I’m not sure how to begin telling them how we made Wes hate us.”

“I don’t think he does,” Hobbie said quietly. “I don’t know if this can be fixed but… I want to try. He doesn’t deserve to be treated this way. And if we’ve broken him… it’s our responsibility to at least try to help him.”

Tycho nodded slowly in agreement. “We’d be the worst sort of cowards if we didn’t. I just hope Luke is able to ease some of his pain.”

“Me too.”

* * *

 

Gavin looked between the older Rogues, bewilderment evident on his face. As Tycho had assumed, Gavin had thought they knew what they were doing. Learning how badly they’d hurt Wes and mishandled their pack was shocking.

Less surprised was Inyri, lounging in an armchair and looking almost disturbingly calculating. When Gavin glanced at her, she rolled her eyes. “Perfect packs that are completely in sync and never mess up are a holofilm myth, Gavin. The real galaxy is messy.”

Hobbie snorted, nodding in agreement. Inyri’s occasional moments of cynicism meshed well with his more dour moods.

“What’s important,” Wedge said quietly looking somewhat pained, “is that you both joined us during a crisis. That crisis has passed so if you would like to withdraw from the pack, no one would fault you. You certainly haven’t done anything to contribute to this mess.”

“Not intentionally, but we were one of the trigger points, weren’t we?” Inyri asked shrewdly.

Wincing, Wedge nodded. “I’m afraid so. It’s not because you did anything. It’s just that, well, you’re here. And Wes wasn’t when you joined us.”

“It’s an awful mess, isn’t it?” Gavin said unhappily. “The terrible fight at Distna and the Rogue pack being so different when we all returned were just the beginning, weren’t they? Inyri and I have been trying to give you space but I guess that probably helped make things worse.”

“Don’t blame yourselves,’ Tycho interjected. “All you’ve done is be present, either in person or in spirit. We’ve known Wes for almost ten years. It was our responsibility to help him settle back in with us and respond to any issues. It’s our fault that we failed.”

Gavin frowned. “It’s not fair to put all of this on yourselves,” he said. “Wes could have spoken up about how he was feeling and we could have done more to help him adjust to our presence. A lot of things contributed to this situation. There’s plenty of blame to spread around. Stop trying to hoard it.”

Almost involuntarily, a small smile appeared on Wedge’s face. “You’re completely right. The only reason we should be looking at the past is to identify what mistakes we made so we can avoid them in the future. You’re becoming wiser everyday, Gavin.”

Cheeks and ears flaming slightly at the praise, Gavin cleared his throat and pushed on. “In order to figure out more about what went wrong, I bet we need more intel. What are we missing?”

Inyri tilted her head consideringly. “Do we know what happened to Wes while we were gone?” she asked. “We know what happened to us and generally that he was rescued by the _Errant Venture_ , but what specifically happened? When did he get out of bacta? When was he told about the squadron and who told him?”

“If we can find that out, we’ll know more about what we need to do to fix it,” Gavin said.

“We?” Wedge repeated.

Gavin nodded solemnly. “Inyri and I been talking. We knew that the circumstances in which we joined the pack weren’t, well, great. None of us were thinking clearly. At the same time, though, being in this pack feels right for both of us. Assuming you’ll let us, we’d like to stay.”

“I haven’t had a pack since Thyne. It’d be nice to see how one works when it doesn’t involve self-obsessed criminals,” Inyri added.

“We’re staying. And we’re going to help fix what’s happened with Wes,” Gavin finished.

Something in the air shifted, an uncertainty falling away. There’d been a sense of separation between them ever since they’d returned to Coruscant and finally, that distance disappeared. Wedge looked so surprised and relieved that Gavin, always open and generous with his affections, leaned over the short table between them and pulled the smaller man into an embrace. Even Inyri was smiling.

They could all feel the invisible bonds between them strengthen and something that had been dormant in Tycho’s mind suddenly flickered to life, one tiny part of his delta nature that had been slumbering since he’d switched to presenting as an omega so he could salvage his crumbling pack.

Specifically, the part that was pretty fixated on sex.

Wedge had his head resting on Gavin’s shoulder as he returned the embrace, When the men parted, Wedge turned and hugged Inryi, who happily butted her head against his.

For Tycho, however, the moment where Wedge had been perched in Gavin’s lap lingered. Then transformed into a mental picture rather lacking in clothes. He had vivid memory of the equipment Gavin was packing and the idea of seeing Wedge, a man of such slight stature, receiving such an oversized offering was intoxicating.

“Tycho’s getting back to normal,” he heard Hobbie say.

The current conversation really didn’t seem all that important compared to figuring out just how long Wedge would need to spend wearing a plug in order to take Gavin’s massive cock in his ass.

“What makes you say that?” Inyri’s voice.

“That look on his face is his sex thoughts face.”

“Wait, what?” Tycho said, suddenly focusing back on the discussion.

Hobbie gave him a knowing look. “You were thinking about sex, weren’t you? Having the kind of thoughts you haven’t had since before Distna.”

Tycho blinked. “I have a specific expression for that?”

“Note he doesn’t deny having those thoughts,” Wedge said.

“Yes. Yes, you do,” Hobbie said, still focusing on Tycho.

“Interesting.” It was interesting. Even better was the idea his prolonged omega status was coming to an end.

Inyri was the one to break the silence. “What were you thinking about?”

“Dangerous question,” Hobbie hissed.

“Nothing pressing,” Tycho said. He’d need to think on it more, after all. And see if Wes had gotten rid of anything from their toy collection when he’d started dealing it their effects.

“That just means he’s still working out the logistics,” Wedge muttered. He eyed Tycho warily. “Last time he he had to work on logistics, I almost dislocated my hip.”

“That was a minor miscalculation. I know what went wrong.”

_“Everything about it was wrong.”_

“That’s not what you were saying when Hobbie was-”

“Getting back on track,” Inryi said loudly while Gavin’s eyes bulged. “Is Tycho shifting back to proper delta status something that will help Wes?”

“I’m not sure,” Wedge admitted after he was done eyeing Tycho. He returned to his original seat, leaving the brief moment of levity behind. “I have to admit, I don’t know as much about this sort of thing as I should. If you didn’t already know, you should be aware that, culturally, Corellia favors pair bonds over packbonds. By the time our pack finally stabilized a year or two ago, it was just the four of us and, well, we knew each other well enough that we skimmed past most issues. I’ve heard of messes like this before occurring in other packs but it’s unprecedented for us. We’ve always been so focused on survival we haven’t really had an opportunity for this kind of drama.”

Gavin tore his eyes off Tycho and returned his focused to the topic at hand. “Corran told me more about pair bonds when he and Mirax bonded. Instead of a group of human adults with semi-defined roles in a pack, a pair bond subsumes those roles into just two people, creating a bond that exchanges security of numbers, perspectives, and range of skills and abilities for a tight connection that usually has greater mental similarity between the two members.” He paused for a moment. “It’s pretty similar to how Bothans arrange things.”

“Pair bonds can also exist within a pack,” Tycho noted. “We’ve never formally explored anything like that but again, with our limited numbers, there was no reason to.”

“So know we know what intel we need,” Gavin said. His brow furrowed. “Research on how other packs have handled conflicts like this as well as getting more specifics on what happened to Wes while we were away. I can go talk to Corran and Mirax,” he offered.

“And I know General Cracken oversaw the team investigating what happened to us,” Wedge said. “I have a meeting scheduled with him tomorrow, but I’ll see about moving that to today.”

“We’ll handle researching pack bonds, then.” Tycho glanced first at Inyri, then Hobbie, getting nods of agreement from each. A surge of pride filled him at everyone’s readiness, no, eagerness, to tackle this situation. This was what a pack could do.

They’d hurt Wes in an almost unforgivable way, but with such a determined pack, he just knew they would be able to make it right.

They’d fix this no matter what.


	3. Chapter 3

Luke awoke quickly, responding to the mental alarm he’d set for him several hours earlier. For a few moments, the Force sang through him, giving him the shape of his surroundings without needing to exert any effort. The temperature controls in his palace suite had cooled the room, leaving a faint chill in the air. Artoo moved through the living area beyond the door to his bedroom, rearranging items according to whatever criteria he had set for himself.

Most importantly of all, Wes slumbered at his side, lying on his side with his head pillowed on Luke’s shoulder. They both had the slightly grungy feeling of dried sweat clinging to their skin but overall, there was no soreness or tenderness marking either of their bodies.

Wes hadn’t been in the right headspace for their usual heat sex indulgences which meant their activities had been simple. Luke had kept pleasuring Wes in his sights as he claimed him, driving into him slow and deep. His hands caressed Wes’s body, reassuring him as much as exciting him. Climax built gradually for both of them but when it erupted, it was unusually intense.

They shared several rounds of leisurely intercourse. Wes moaned and sighed under Luke as they worked to satiate his body’s mating drive and barely an hour passed before Wes drifted off to sleep as his body relaxed after another climax.

After drawing the bedclothes over them, Luke settled down next to Wes and joined him in sleep, pausing only to ensure he’d awaken in time to prepare them both a late lunch.

Now awake, Luke took care not to wake Wes up as he shifted positions slightly so he could check on him. He couldn’t resist brushing a lock of curly hair out of Wes’s eyes. Even in sleep he looked upset.

He rested his arm on Wes’s waist and took a moment to just take comfort in his presence. However badly the morning had gone, it was important to remember that Wes wasn’t there anymore. He was safe and hopefully felt confident that he was loved.

Reaching out with the Force, Luke studied Wes’s tattered packbonds, seeking to fully understand the nature of the damage.

He could see where the initial fractures had occurred a few months earlier following the Battle of Distna. The fight had been violent and Wes had been forced to eject from his starfighter, leaving him floating in hard vacuum with only his suit’s emergency life support to keep him alive. The ejection had been violent as his pilot’s couch ripped its way from the damaged ship and intense pain had rippled through the packbonds to the others. With that agony still echoing in the others’ minds, Wes unable to respond to the comms as he floated unconscious, and with a life signature so weak it couldn’t be picked up by a rapidly moving snubfighter, Wedge, Hobbie, and Tycho had departed the system fully convinced Wes had died.

That certainty had lashed at the packbonds as they stretched across lightyears. When Wes awoke in a New Republic hospital and was informed that Rogue Squadron had died, the damaged bonds had snapped, nearly taking his sanity along with them. The weak bond between him and Luke had seemingly been one of the few things that had kept him from becoming actively suicidal.

He’d still been put on suicide watch just in case, though.

Luke had felt the tumult through the packbonds but had been caught up in a situation on a neobarb world. A simple visit to an old Jedi graveyard had turned into a desperate, daily fight for survival. It took weeks to extract his X-Wing from the barbarous warlord who had seized it and make enough repairs that he could get offworld. Even then, he still spent weeks negotiating with and fighting smugglers and pirates as he struggled to make his way Coreward. Throughout, he worried about his pack. He could still feel Wes, but the others had seemingly disappeared, not in a violent break, but in more of a gradual disappearance. It didn’t make any sense.

The very first thing Leia said to him when he was finally able to call was that she wasn’t going to let him go on his Jedi search missions alone anymore.

The second was to tell him the news about Rogue Squadron. A file swiftly made its way to him through the Holonet, sharing the full details as far as they were known.

He tried to call Wes. No one answered.

Luke spent the next day meditating, doing his best to remotely strengthen the bond he shared with Wes so he didn’t feel entirely alone. The pain crying out across the bond improved slightly when the Rogues reappeared alive and well, but crashed again as Wes’s flash heat began to burn inside him.

Flash heats rarely offered any kind of warning before they started, but with everything that had happened, Wes should never have woken up alone. The trauma the Rogues had suffered was precisely the sort of thing that often triggered flash heats. They were a base biological function, in part a way for a distressed omega or delta to gather a pack to them and ensure their security.

It was infuriating that not a single one of them, Wes included, had even considered that Wes’s distress over the loss and resurrection of his pack might trigger a flash heat. The end result had been Wes waking up alone, his ravaged packbonds flailing as they struggled to properly anchor themselves to his absent packmates. With no pack responding to the flash heat and surrounding him, the packbonds turned on Wes, tearing at his mind as they shrieked out their loss.

Within moments, the housing unit that had been home for over a year turned dangerous. The familiar scents of the others became sources of distress. Wes suddenly felt like he had no pack and was trapped deep in the territory of the pack that had rejected him.

Thankfully, the Force moved in mysterious ways and Luke sensed he needed to head straight for his Rogues as soon as he reached Coruscant.

Probably only fifteen minutes had passed between Wes’s heat turning on him and Luke’s arrival. Still, when Luke hurried into the housing unit, he found Wes cowering in the corner of the bedroom, shaking and crying. His instincts were screaming at him to flee but Wes had just enough sense to realize that running around in public in his underwear drenched in heat scent was a bad idea. The conflict between the two impulses was nearly as distressing as the feeling of being utterly abandoned.

Despite his shock at the state Wes was in, Luke reacted swiftly. He got him into proper clothes, extracted a rough outline of what had happened from Wes, and got him out of the unit and into the waiting speeder as fast as possible. His only goal was crisis management.

The damage caused by the bad heat was very evident, unfortunately. The fractures from the Rogues’ apparent death were bad enough, but the heat had aggravated the wounds. Wes had just barely been able to reconnect the packbonds when the Rogues returned and that connection was still in place. They were so tenuous, though, they almost might as well have not existed at all.

Before Luke could probe deeper and dig further into Wes’s mental wounds, he began to stir at Luke’s side. For a brief moment, he was relaxed. Then memory of what had happened hit him and Wes went rigid. He looked at Luke and a flash of despair passed through his eyes.

Wes rolled away from Luke, presenting him with his broad back as he faced the far wall. “I’m fine,” Wes said. His voice was small and straining. “I’m sure you have Jedi stuff to take care of. I’ll be fine. You can go.”

“What? No, Wes, I’m-”

“You can leave,” Wes interrupted. He rolled back slightly, casting a quick look over his shoulder. “You always leave. Everyone leaves.” Choking on the last words, Wes dropped flat onto the bed, burying his face against the side of a pillow.

Shocked, Luke rose to his knees and crawled over to Wes. When he laid a hand on Wes’s back, the other omega flinched away, causing Luke to immediately pull back. Wes was upset enough without him blundering around and making things worse.

Luke took a deep breath and reached out to the Force, using it to peer more closely at the packbond. The pain echoing through Wes went deep, deeper than Luke’s first scan earlier had revealed. This time when he carefully explored it, he could now see that this wound had torn open something much, much older.

Faces flashed through Wes’s mind - Zev Senesca, Dak Ralter, Shira Brie, Viera Cheram, Elscol Loro, and many others. All Rogues. All dead, gone, or turned traitor.

And suddenly, it all made sense.

A list of all the current and former members of the Rogue Squadron pack made it look absolutely massive. But it didn’t take long to realize that the reason for the long list was the horrifically high attrition rate the squadron had suffered as the premier starfighter squadron for the Rebel Alliance.

The Rogue pack had been bleeding and losing members within its first year of existence. Wes had had a flash heat a few months after Yavin. It only lasted about a day, but it had been more than enough to establish the bonds necessary for a pack.

And then Sarkli betrayed them.

Zev left.

More died.

They’d built their pack up and rebuilt it over and over and over again. They lost members one after another all the way until the squadron was officially shortly decommissioned after the Battle of Mindor thanks to political machinations of various officials in the new government.

The needs of the New Republic had reigned supreme that day and the handful of human members still bound together by the packbond were cruelly split every which way.

Luke was struggling to learn more about the Jedi and find his place within the new order, and thusly, couldn’t stick around. Tycho was whisked into service by New Republic Intelligence where his Imperial training, Core manners, and piloting skills would be useful, and Wedge got paraded from planet to planet on a victory tour. Meanwhile, Wes and Hobbie were sent away to instruct new pilots and build new squadrons, squirreled away in an obscure corner of the galaxy.

A pack that had once numbered over a dozen people was swiftly whittled down to a handful spread out across countless lightyears and kept that way for far, far too long.

Wes was hurting right now, feeling abused at best and abandoned at worst after years of their pack being mistreated. In light of the Rogue pack’s bloody history, it was no wonder recents events had finally caused Wes to crack. Trauma made for a poor mortar, and an even worse foundation. Pile too much of it up and the entire structure would come crashing down.

Luke pressed close to Wes again, stretching out next to him on the bed and wrapping a tight arm around his waist. Wes hid his face and hunched his shoulders, but Luke refused to let Wes push him away.

“I’m not leaving you,” he vowed. “Not now and not later, not if you want me to stay. I want to be here, with you. The only way I’ll leave is if you force me to.”

He could feel Wes fighting with himself, wanting to accept the comfort Luke offered while at the same time flinching away from it.

Curling even tighter in on himself, Wes buried his face further into the pillow. “I’ll call the Wraiths,” he mumbled. “They came by when- when the others were-” His voice broke off and it took several long moments before he could continue. “Face said they had a place for me if I wanted it. I wouldn’t… be in the way.”

Luke wasn’t entirely certain who the Wraiths were, but it was clear Wes wasn’t exactly enthusiastic about the idea of joining them.

“If you want to join the Wraiths, I sure we can make that happen. The Rogues would miss you, though. Your pack and your squadron.”

Pain flared in Wes’s chest and he abruptly uncurled, throwing himself at Luke with a sob. “They don’t need me. They replaced me.”

“That’s not true,” Luke said, folding his arms around Wes.  The other omega’s heat scent had actually diminished, a worrying sign of just how distressed he was. “I don’t know what happened, but I know them well enough to know that isn’t true.”

Wes shook his head, his dark curls tickling Luke’s chest. “They broke our pack while they were gone. Tycho’s holding them together now. Gavin and Inyri replaced me. They don’t want me anymore.

Biting his lip, Luke rested his cheek against Wes’s head. Luke could sense that part of what Wes said was true. But he didn’t believe the others didn’t care about Wes anymore. Rather, the Rogues had yet again survived the impossible, but this time when they returned, the trauma they’d endured was much more severe and Wes suddenly couldn’t see his place with them anymore.

“Things didn’t change because they don’t want you. It changed because they thought they’d lost you and they were struggling to survive.”

“Then why did leave me today?” Wes whispered.

“They made a mistake. I bet anything they’re furious with themselves right now for hurting you.”

Wes shook his head again. “No. No, they replaced me. They don’t need me. They don’t… They don’t want me.”

“Wes…”

“They don’t,” Wes moaned. His shoulders began to shake.

He was going in circles, Luke realized with alarm, and working himself straight into a panic attack.

Pulling back slightly, he grasped Wes’s chin and angled his face up, kissing him soundly. Though diminished, Wes’s heat was still active. If he did this right, he could probably distract Wes enough with pleasures of the flesh and break the cycle he was stuck in.

Wes inhaled, eyes closing as he went still. Then, opening his eyes again, he tentatively returned the kiss.

They shared this simple embrace for several minutes and gradually, Luke let his hands start to wander across Wes’s torso. His fingers lightly traced Wes’s muscles and brushed broad strokes across the broad plains of his back and sides. The touches caused Wes to shiver. The heat scent began to pick up again and Wes pressed himself fully against Luke, his body beginning to burn with need once more.

Wes wasn’t the only one being affected. Luke rocked his hips against Wes, his shift standing firm and prominent. Moaning, Wes moved with him and as they rubbed against each other, and the flash heat roared back to life.

Reaching between Wes’s legs, Luke slipped a finger inside him and began to pump it in and out. The amount of slick inside him began to increase again as his fingers fucked him.

“Where’s my finger?” Luke asked Wes.

“It’s… It’s inside me,” Wes said. He was still breathing faster than Luke liked, still flying too close to panic. Luke added a second finger and began twisted them around.

“Why do I have fingers in you?” If he could just shift Wes back to thinking about his heat….

“You’re fucking me,” Wes whimpered. His legs opened up slightly. “Heat. I’m in heat.”

“That’s right. You’re in heat and I’m here to fuck you,” Luke said. Leaning down, he kissed Wes again, stroking at his mouth with his tongue.

Wes opened his mouth, then moaned when Luke slipped his tongue in and out.

Luke added a third finger and began to pick up the pace. Wes’s legs spread wider until Luke could easily see his genitals when he pushed himself upright. It was hard not to get distracted by Wes’s aroused body. His lower lips were flushed and swollen with arousal. Slick continued to leak out of his hole even as it coated Luke’s fingers.

Moaning helplessly, Wes began to rock his hips with Luke’s hand, trying to drive his fingers deeper. In response, Luke briefly withdrew his hand and brought four fingers together, pointer and pinky tucked slightly beneath his middle and ring fingers. Driving his hand back into Wes, his packmate gasped. Luke twisted his fingers around, trying to hit Wes’s sweet spots. After a few hard thrusts, Wes came, his passage clenching down around Luke’s fingers and slick squirting out of his body.

“Please fuck me, Luke,” Wes moaned. “Want to come again.”

Luke had to remind himself to keep breathing. Wes’s slick carried extra pheromones beyond what he was already producing and the scent was intoxicatingly close thanks to the fluid that had hit Luke’s leg. Instead of dropping to his knees and drinking the slick straight from the source, he brushed Wes’s mind through their packbond, relieved to only feel lust and submission. There wasn’t a hint of the panic he'd been working himself into.

Without any hesitation, Luke climbed on top of him and thrust inside.

Instantly coming again, more slick flew out Wes’s body around Luke’s shaft as his powerful internal muscles spasmed.

Snapping his hips forward and back, Luke set a bruising rhythm. Wes’s tight wet passage gripped all around him, sparking all the thousands of nerve endings lining Luke’s shaft. Moaning helplessly, Luke continued to fuck Wes hard, seeking more of the sweet pleasure Wes’s body was giving him.

Beneath him, Wes rocked with him, eyes closed as his head rolled from side to side. He was panting and moaning, letting out a breathy wail with each thrust. Their coupling brought them to orgasm again and again. Pleasure flowed back and forth through their packbond, growing stronger as it passed through each of them and returned to the other.

Also growing stronger was their packbond. The invisible tether connecting the two men sang out joyfully as they moved together. Wes seized Luke’s head and pulled him down for a kiss, moaning into his mouth as another orgasm crashed through him. Above him, his packmate smiled in delight at his pleasure and the hurt places deep inside him opened up, drinking in Luke’s affection like a plant thirsty for water.

Perhaps there was a chance after all that things were going to be okay.


	4. Chapter 4

As Wedge seated himself in General Cracken’s office, he caught the flash of irritation in the older man’s eyes. Wedge had been able to shift their meeting up by a day, but he’d had to throw some weight around to do so and clearly it was something of an inconvenience.

Frankly, Wedge didn’t care. In his opinion, Cracken was too liberal in co-opting Starfighter Command for Intelligence purposes. He’d been a dedicated Rebel and continued to serve the New Republic as its highly effective head of intelligence operations, but he didn’t get checked as much as he should. There were times NRI appeared to be running rampant and that was concerning.

And deep down, Wedge knew he’d never forgive Cracken for how Tycho had been treated after escaping from Akrit-tar. Legitimate security concerns be damned. It had been beyond cruel and even years later, Tycho still carried those wounds. Cracken had allowed Tycho to be very badly hurt and he’d never once apologized for it.

“General Antilles,” Cracken said briskly as he deactivated his terminal, “I’m pleased to see you back with the New Republic and back with the living. Rogue Squadron’s reputation continues to grow.”

“We didn’t all make it out,” Wedge said somberly. Any death was too much. Three at once was horrible, even if it was a so-called acceptable loss.

“That’s the unfortunate price of war, as I know you know,” Cracken said. “The losses we incur are hard, but the best way to honor those sacrifices are to finish the mission. And you did that well.”

“That is… certainly one way to view it,” Wedge said diplomatically.

Snorting, Cracken unlocked a desk drawer and drew out a datacard, which he loaded into an unusually heavy looking datapad, no doubt loaded with all sorts of special security measures.

“I’m aware you’ve done an Intelligence debriefing already, but I wanted to review a few points and discuss how matters played out politically. You should be aware of how the various factions in the government reacted to the situation.” Cracken paused for a moment, giving Wedge a narrow eyed look. “Of course, I was expecting to have a bit more time to prepare for this meeting.”

“Pack matters have come up that are affecting my availability,” Wedge said simply. He assumed Cracken was aware of that there was a situation, but he hoped the specifics, at least, were still private.

Hobbie had done a quick check of the housing unit upon their return and had removed a handful of Intelligence bugs, not all of them easily found. It was just one of many issues he wanted to address.

Cracken grunted at the mention of pack and busied himself with perusing his datapad. Wedge had never gotten the impression that he saw packs as anything more than a means to an end. Certainly, if Cracken had a pack of his own, Wedge had never heard of it.

They moved through Cracken’s discussion points quickly. Despite his grumblings, Cracken was well prepared for the meeting and moved through his queries about Isard, Broak Vessery, and their actions on Ciutric with rapid-fire precision. The discussion about the Borsk Fey’lya’s machinations and the grumblings of the different political factions also passed quickly. There were few surprises in the information, but it was an excellent gauge of the possible breakdown of challenges Starfighter Command would face when planning future military operations and during budget discussions.

“Now then,” Cracken said as he cleared the datapad and tossed the datacard into another drawer of his desk. A dull roar sounded when he paused, suggesting the card had just been destroyed. “I assume you have questions for me?”

“I want to know what happened to Wes Janson while we were believed to be dead,” Wedge said bluntly. “Specifically, I mean.”

“You can’t ask him?”

“In light of the monitoring devices we found in our housing unit? I’d rather hear about it from you. Along with an explanation.” Wedge stared back steadily. He wouldn’t be leaving until he had the answers he wanted.

Cracken stared back at him. Eventually, he grunted again and dug back into his desk, producing another datacard.

Wedge couldn’t stop his eyebrow from twitching. It appeared Cracken had anticipated this discussion. He wondered what else lay in wait in that desk.

“The _Errant Venture_ arrived at Corvis Minor approximately an hour after you left with Broak Vessery. Booster Terrik gathered up all the bodies and debris his people could find and departed the system under fire from some of Krennell’s forces. When they discovered Wes Janson was alive, he was immediately taken to the _Venture_ ’s online medical facilities, where he remained until being transferred to the military medical hospital for further treatment. His injuries included flash burns caused by the torpedoes striking his X-Wing, multiple skeletal fractures from the torpedo strikes as well as ejection, a severe concussion, vacuum exposure, and relatively minor oxygen deprivation. Even with intense bacta treatment, it was almost three weeks before he was released from the hospital to continue healing at home.”

Cracken paused, glancing up at Wedge, whose clenched jaw was the only sign of his distress at hearing the list of injuries.

“Since Mon Mothma made a public announcement about our apparent destruction only two days after the battle, I assume Wes was made aware of what had happened?” Wedge asked.

Cracken nodded. “He didn’t remember much from the battle when he was debriefed thanks to concussion, but the debriefing officer did explain the situation. Afterwards, Iella Wessiri spoke with him and visited whenever he wasn’t in bacta.” He paused for a moment and checked his notes. “The debriefing occurred ten days after the battle once his doctors deemed him fit and coherent enough.”

“How could Mon Mothma make a public declaration about us only two days after the battle?” Wedge asked. “It takes several days of hyperspace travel to travel from Corvis Minor to Coruscant and if it took that long for Wes to be debriefed, how could the announcement have come so soon?”

“Iella provided a preliminary analysis of the situation,” Cracked said with a small shrug. “Matters seemed fairly definitive, especially once they recovered the datarecorders from Flight Officer Lyyr Zatoq and Khe-Jen Slee’s X-Wings. But ultimately, it was deemed politically expedient to release the information at that time. It helped further cement the campaign to liberate the Ciutric Hegemony.”

They’d been political tools, even in death. Or perhaps, especially in death. Abstractly, Wedge had always assumed that would be the case but actually hearing it turned his stomach.

“What happened to Wes after he received the news about Rogue Squadron?” Wedge asked, moving on.

Cracken glanced down at his datapad, his eyes barely lingering on the display. “His parents had been notified about the situation seeing as they were his next on his list of medical proxies after the other members of the Rogue Squadron pack. They stayed with him until he was released from the hospital and then joined him in the housing unit you share. I believed they helped him begin to pack up your personal belongings for disposal as per the instructions left behind in your wills.” He paused for a moment. “How did that work out, by the way?”

Wedge stifened, then glared.

“Ah, lost that much of your personal belongings, did you?” Cracken’s tone of voice was far too knowing. “I imagine you’re still trying to track some of the items down, aren’t you?”

“Since it appears some of them were disposed of after my message reached the New Republic, I take it no one told Wes?” Wedge asked, not appreciating how Cracken was trying to pry into pack business.

The redirection was hardly subtle but Cracken accepted the cue. “After analyzing the potential outcomes, Janson was deemed too emotionally fragile for the information. There were also concerns what he might do if he learned you were all alive only to lose some or all of you on Ciutric.”

“So instead you let him keep thinking he’d lost everything?” Wedge growled.

“It seemed the lesser of two evils, especially in light of the unusually high operational security needs.” Wedge inhaled sharply, fury rising in his eyes, but Cracken raised a hand. “We weren’t concerned Janson himself would intentionally leak the information, but we had to assume he was under surveillance and any change of behavior could have alerted Krennel or Isard. Moreover, we had an annoyingly difficult time performing background checks on Janson’s parents. Needless to say, they were never going to be cleared enough to be read into the situation.”

“So the bugs we found?”

“Were there for Janson’s protection.”

“And you didn’t remove them because…”

“Lack of opportunity. You’ve all been annoyingly homebound since returning.”

A fresh flare of fury erupted at that statement, but Wedge forced it back. Cracken was utterly unrepentant about the invasion of their home. Yelling about it wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“Did we miss any?” Wedge asked in a tight voice.

Cracken looked down at his datapad again, using his stylus to scroll through the data readout. “No, it appears Hobbie was quite effective.” Pausing, he glanced up. “Should he ever be interested in a new career, we’d be very happy to have him.”

“I’ll be sure to pass that along.”

“Please do,” Cracken replied, apparently ignoring the clear sarcasm in Wedge’s voice.

“Alright,” Wedge said, “what about quarantine? I can understand why Wes wasn’t allowed to join us, but he never came to see us, nor was he at the celebratory party once we and the hostages were released. Why?

“And why the _hell_ did we have to find out he was alive from a _civilian at the party?_ Why the kriff were we not informed _the moment we were back in New Republic space_?”

“Operational security-”

“Is a bullshit answer. Tell me the truth.”

Pure icy rage glowed in Wedge’s eyes. The small twitches in his arms and his clenched fists were obvious signs of his barely controlled furor.

Cracken actually looked taken aback. He’d never seen Wedge express this sort of anger before. It took him several moments to speak.

“Janson was still under suicide watch. After six weeks, allowing a few days more days to pass before he received word seemed a small price to pay if it ensured we could clear the health of all the Rogue Squadron pack members.”

“Fifteen days isn’t “a few days”, Cracken,” Wedge snarled.

“Once we had determined our path, we couldn’t deviate once it was determined you would need to be in quarantine for longer than initially expected.”

“And the reason we weren’t told?”

Cracken snorted. “Your pilots are very resourceful. I’m certain one of them, most likely Hobbie, would have found a way to send him a communique once you found out.” The gray haired man gave Wedge a considering look. “As I recall the chain of events, you made a similar decision once you did receive the news about Janson’s fate.”

Wedge clenched his jaw, inhaling sharply through his nose. “There was no one available to give him the news in person and he’d have thought someone was playing a cruel prank on him if we’d tried calling. Since you refused to allow us prior contact, we had to wait until we could be there in person so he wouldn’t doubt his own senses.”

“It doesn’t seem to have worked out all that well.

“How DARE you-”

“I apologize,” Cracken interrupted, raising a hand. “That was out of line.”

Glaring, Wedge bit back his instinctive response. He didn’t know what Cracken was playing at but he didn’t like it. The best thing he could do was stop giving him openings.

“Did you have any other questions?” Cracken asked, moving on as though the matter was closed.

“... No.” There was nothing more Cracken could tell him. He’d gotten what he needed. Mirax and Iella would have the other answers.

“In that case, I wish you well, General. With your squadron and your… pack matters.”

Rising, Wedge did not offer Cracken his hand, and instead gave him a bare nod before leaving.

He wanted to tell Cracken to leave his pack alone and stop prying into their lives. He wanted New Republic Intelligence to stop using his Rogues as their personal pet starfighter squadron.

He knew it would never stop, not as long as Airen Cracken was at its head.

Bitterness and rage were competing to dominate his mood as he strode out to his military speeder. Practically throwing himself into the driver’s seat, Wedge powered up the ground craft.

Before he could leave, the passenger side door opened and someone climbed in.

Garik “Face” Loran’s expression was calm and controlled as he fastened his seat straps. “I’m glad to see you, General. We should talk.”

* * *

  
Gavin bit his lip as he waited outside the Horn residence. He wished he had an idea how this conversation was going to go. This situation was such a terrible mess. He’d caught a whiff of Wes’s heat scent in the apartment and the sheer amount of fear and panic mixed in it terrified him.

How could this have happened? Wedge, Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie had always seemed so close, never surprised by anything the others did and just… comfortable with each other. Something had gone horribly wrong for them to break apart like this.

The door opened and Corran greeted him, waving him inside.

Gavin felt his face flush as he passed the shorter man. Buried under Corran’s wet hair and the smell of soap was the distinctive scent of sex. There were days he hated having alpha senses.

Emerging from the kitchen with a bottle of wine, Mirax greeted him with a half embrace. Again Gavin caught a whiff of sex and he did his best to feign ignorance about the Horns’ recent activities.

“I’m glad you came by,” Mirax said with a warm smile. “We haven’t had a chance to properly catch up since the party.”

“Yeah, things have been, um, busy,” he said, letting her steer him towards the waiting soft seats in the living area.

“I can imagine. Your message said there was some pack drama going on?”

Gavin accepted the glass of pink wine Mirax offered him and took a polite sip. “Things are a bit muddled with Wes,” he admitted.

“How is he doing?” Mirax asked somberly. “I meant to send him a message offering to let him use the _Pulsar Skate_ to come of the party but with everything going on I forgot. I feel terrible about that.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t come,” Corran added as he sat down next to Mirax. His hand immediately reached out for hers.

“We’re not sure what’s going on,” Gavin said with a furrowed brow. “For some reason, no one told him we were alive which is why he wasn’t at the party. He was happy but apparently also pretty upset when he saw the others. Uh, Inyri and I have been trying to give Wedge and the others space,” he added after a moment. “So we weren’t there when they went home.”

“No one told him?” Corran repeated disbelievingly.

Mirax covered her mouth with her hand, looking appalled. “Then he probably found out through the holonews. Oh, shavitt, this is all my fault. I knew it was bad idea to keep him out of the loop when Whistler and Gate reached us.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Corran said as he squeezed her hand. “You weren’t the one making all the calls.”

Gavin nodded vigorously. “Wedge is meeting with General Cracken right now, so hopefully we can figure out how that happened.”

“So what brings you here? I was under the impression packs tried to keep internal matters, well, internal,” Corran said.

“Um, well, we’re trying to learn more about what happened to Wes while we were all thought to be dead.” Gavin took a sip of his drink, mind racing as he tried to decide just how much to say. “It’s been a little harder to, uh, integrate - re-integrate? - everyone than we expected.”

Mirax frowned while Corran gave him a piercing look. Heat began to spread across Gavin’s cheeks, the start of an embarrassed blush and he quickly drank again to try and hide it behind his glass.

“You can’t ask him?” Corran asked shrewdly.

“I doubt it’s a memory he wants to revisit,” Mirax said, frowning. “I know I don’t enjoy looking back on that time and I found out the truth much earlier than he did.”

“Gavin? What’s going on?” Corran’s green eyes were piercing in their intensity. “I can understand not wanting to go into much detail, but we can’t help if we don’t know what’s gone wrong. Don’t forget I was there when Tycho had his flash heat and all of you changed the pack, and Mirax was here with Wes while he was struggling to cope. We’re already involved to a certain extent.”

Biting his lip, Gavin began to fiddle with his glass. “Wes isn’t, um, currently staying with the others. There was kind of an incident this morning and he’s staying with Luke Skywalker at the moment.”

“An incident?” Mirax repeated disbelievingly. “The Rogue pack has never had an incident. They’ve always been incredibly in sync.”

“It’s not the same pack, though, is it?” Gavin said unhappily. “Inyri and I are part of it now and that’s part of the problem.”

“No, it isn’t.” Mirax’s gaze was knowing. “I’ve been around the Rogues for a long time, Gavin, longer than this current iteration. People have been coming and going from the Rogue pack for years, by choice, death, or other means. You and Inyri being present aren’t enough to break the pack.”

“Wedge said earlier today that this sort of incident was unprecedented.“ A sudden thought struck him and an earlier observation blossomed into full blown worry. “He also said that the pack didn’t stabilize until a year or two ago. I’ve only ever had a familial pack before this, but that’s not normal, right?”

Looking equally uncertain, Corran looked at Mirax, who frowned. “That timeline coincides with Wedge, Tycho, Wes, and Hobbie all becoming Rogues again,so that’s what Wedge was probably referring to. But no, it’s not normal for a pack to feel unsettled for, well, years. I’ve met plenty of packs through work and the only ones who went through something similar…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” Corran prompted her.

“The ones that managed to hang together for years without feeling safe or stable were the ones experiencing the most trauma. Packs on worlds with an unusually oppressive Imperial presence, packs dealing with famine or constant pirate attacks, that sort of thing.”

“Packs founded in trauma,” Corran summarized.

“Founded in trauma and ones that had trouble coping once that traumatizing influence ended.”

“The Rogue Squadron pack was founded after Yavin,” Corran said slowly. “And suffered continued losses for years while struggling against the Empire.”

“They got split up,” Gavin added with growing anxiety. “The New Republic sent Wes and Hobbie away to train squadrons, Wedge was sent on a publicity tour, and Tycho was sent on Intelligence missions that ended with his capture.”

“And it’s only in the last year or two that they’ve finally been all together and likely started to feel some measure of safety and security.” Corran finished.

“Even then, you’ve heard the way they talk sometimes. I know we’re all putting our lives on the lines when we go on missions, but they’re almost nihilistic about believing they’ll die in battle,” Gavin said.

Mirax looked appalled. “Is this how the New Republic military treats all its active combat packs?”

“No, it’s not,” Gavin said blinking. His mind raced as he tried to think back. “I always wanted to be a Rogue like Biggs would have if he’d survived. It’s why I contacted Wedge when I signed on to join Starfighter Command. But my parents pointed out that I might not be allowed to join them because I was so young so I did a lot of research into other squadrons and general... You know, policy stuff. There are rules about packs, how they should be treated, special leave allowances, being taken off active duty during significant membership changes, and so on. There are a lot of pack-focused benefits.”

“Have they ever taken advantage of those benefits?” Mirax asked.

Gavin and Corran shared a look.   
  
“Not as long as I’ve been a Rogue,” Corran said grimly. “They may not even have considered it. It’s very apparent some days that they still think about things from the perspective of how things were during the Rebellion days.”

“So they’ve just been chugging along clinging together and terrified of losing each other again all the way until the Battle of Distna actually did that. No wonder there was an incident once they were reunited again.”

Mirax looked angry and Gavin couldn’t help but shiver at the plans unfolding behind her eyes. General Cracken just might come to regret giving her such close access to him.

Good.

He’d never thought through the Rogue pack’s history before like they’d just done, but he could see how mistreated they’d been. If he was able to stay with them, he vowed, he was going to change that. It was all too clear now that the older Rogues were in so deep and so used to the abuse they didn’t even see it.

“What happened this morning, Gavin?” Mirax demanded.

He took a deep breath. Time to lay all the cards on the table. “Wes wasn’t reacting well to the changes to the pack that happened while we were apparently dead. Then this morning, he had a flash heat start and there wasn’t anyone with him. Luke Skywalker showed up soon after and took Wes home with him. We haven’t heard a lot from either of them since, just that we need to figure out how to un-kriff this situation. Tycho’s half convinced Wes hates all of us and Hobbie doesn’t seem convinced we deserve to have him come back.”

“That’s awful.” Coran said.

Mirax stared at Gavin. “No one considered that flash heats are often triggered to bond or rebond a pack, did they?” She sighed when he shook his head. “No wonder Wes didn’t want to stay home. The amount of disregard and neglect he must be feeling is awful.”

“We want to fix it,” Gavin said quickly. “Everyone sees what went wrong this morning and after looking at the pack’s history, well, I can see why the others were jumping straight into getting the squadron reactivated. They couldn’t not do that, could they?”

“No. And it makes your current mission two-fold,” Corran said thoughtfully. A ghost of smile crossed his face. “Repair the break with Wes, then help the pack heal from years of trauma.”

“Exactly. We have a tentative plan already to fix things with Wes, but we need data.” Gavin looked at Mirax. “I know it was a rough time for you, but could you tell me what you know of what happened to Wes between the Battle of Distna and when we came back?”

Mirax nodded, but also frowned and drank as she thought. Finally, she said, “To best honest, Iella was with Wes more than I was. I visited him but, well, it hurt seeing him. I knew it wasn’t his fault that he was alive and no one else was - as we thought at the time - but I was still angry. I was angry to have lost Corran and Wedge, angry that Wes was all alone and hurting so much, and angry with myself for not being able to do more.”

Looking distressed, Corran moved closer to her and wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders. Mirax reached up and clasped that hand holding her.

“Wes was unconscious for the entire flight back to Coruscant,” she said after a moment. “He first came to a few days after being transferred to the military hospital and even though he wasn’t very lucid, Iella said she was sure he didn’t seem to understand what had happened. She said he kept looking around every time he woke up, like he was looking for someone. Iella was his only visitor. She’d told him it was because he was in Intensive Care and there were security concerns… But she didn’t think he believed her, not once he started to become more lucid.

“He was finally debriefed, oh, about two weeks after the battle. And… It was bad. He didn’t remember much from the battle but the debriefing forced to accept that the rest of his pack was dead.”

Mirax fell silent again, her face drawn and pinched. It was hard not to shudder. Gavin was still getting used to the feeling of being in a pack and having his packmates as soft, whispering presences at the edges of his mind, but the idea of losing that was still terrifying.

“Wes’s parents arrived a day or two after he was debriefed. The hospital had officially put him on suicide watch and he’d stopped engaging with the doctors and nurses taking care of him. I never met them myself, but his parents were able to get him somewhat functional again, enough so that they hospital was willing to release him after another two weeks.

“Whistler and Gate arrived a few days before he was released, so Iella and I weren’t able to see him as much after that. We were immediately in a time crunch trying to work out our end of the plan to deal with Isard. At the same time, though, we both felt terrible that we didn’t have time to go see him. We were sleeping in offices at Intelligence headquarters and devoting every possible moment to the plan. Still, from his perspective, he must have felt abandoned and unimportant.”

“Just one more broken, useless, worn out pilot past his prime,” Corran said sighing.

Wincing, Mirax nodded. “We wanted to bring him in, truly, but Cracken pointed out that if lost his pack all over again after just getting them back, it might destroy him. He’d already been having suicidal thoughts, apparently, and we didn’t want to push him over the edge.

“I only have spotty knowledge of what he was up to between his discharge and when you all returned to Coruscant. He sent his parents home at some point during that time period and he contact me about giving us some of Wedge’s things around when you all entered quarantine.” Mirax bit her lip. “I should have told him right then and there that you were all alive. Damned Cracken, how could I let him talk me out of it…”

“Wedge might be able to explain General Cracken’s actions,” Gavin said. “I bet his meeting is almost over.”

Grabbing her drink, Mirax drained it in one long pull. When she was done, she pointed a finger at him. “You tell us everything Wedge reports to you about Cracken. And keep us updated on Wes. We’re here to help if you need it.”

“In the meantime,” Corran continued, “we’ll start looking into the pack protections and benefits for you. Once the situation is fixed with Wes, we’ll be ready to help you with the Rogue pack. We aren’t going to let them keep being abused.”

“I’ll let Inyri know,” Gavin said. “She knows how dysfunctional packs work so she’ll be eager to help fix this one.”

“Good. We’ll let you head out, then,” Corran said, rising.

“Thank you for all your help,” Gavin said gratefully.

“Of course,” Mirax replied. “We’re not exactly pack and adding pair-bonded Alphas would be, ah, challenging at best, but we like to think of ourselves as close friends to the Rogue pack.”

“I’ll remember that,” Gavin said grinning.

As he stepped out of the door, it was with a much lighter heart than before. Things finally felt like they were getting on track.


	5. Chapter 5

As water rained down from the shower head, Wes pressed Luke against the wall, kissing him hungrily. After just five hours, the flash heat had subsided and Luke almost felt drunk at how strong their packbond had become. The invisible tether hummed happily in his mind, with Wes a warm, beloved presence on the other end.

As Luke cradled Wes’s head and fervently returned the kiss, the heat from the shower continued to relax their sore muscles and soothe the scattered marks that dotted both their bodies. The base urge to mate had ended, leaving them tired but content with each other. With no other pack members around, the flash heat had burned itself out relatively quickly. Wes was still emotionally battered but significantly steadier than before. The sharp agony of his mental and emotional wounds, at least, had faded. Hopefully, their broken pack would reunite and in time, the damage caused by years of trauma and separation would heal.

Fingers slid down his hip and across his thigh, seeking out his core and Luke laughed against Wes’s mouth. Wes had always had a healthy libido and even the heat hadn’t affected it. Horniness purred across the packbond, their wet nudity sparking Wes’s renewing interest.

Even a Jedi knew better than to get too acrobatic in a shower, though, so, holding onto a handrail with one hand, Luke turned his mind to the bedroom and summoned a particular device to them, struggling to guide it through the door to refresher and over the opening at the entrance to the shower. Wes’s fingers were being very distracting.

The toy bumped into Wes’s side as it soared into Luke’s hand. The other man pulled away for a moment, glancing down. “And you,” he said once he saw what Luke was now holding.

“Let me take care of you first,” Luke replied. “Then I’ll get something for me. We can both play as long as you remember to be careful.”

“You’ve gotten daring in your old age,” Wes teased. Then his breath caught in his throat as Luke nudged his legs open.

“Hush,” Luke murmured in his ear. “Or I’ll put this right back where it came from instead of where you want it.”

Head falling back, Wes moaned as Luke teased him with the dildo, running the artificial head across his entrance a few times before finally pressing it inside.

Luke kissed him lightly, barely brushing Wes’s lips with his own as he slowly thrust the toy inside Wes. He didn’t rush, instead giving Wes’s body time to adjust to the penetration as he slowly went deeper. He was sore down there but with gentle handling and the application of one of the smaller toys he owned, Wes would finish their shower in a very good mood.

“Now you,” Wes said once he was completely filled. His voice was breathy as he squeezed around the toy. He’s always loved penetration.

“Right. Take this, then. And be careful.” While Wes began to play with the dildo, Luke thought for a moment, then called another toy to the shower. Instead of another artificial cock, he slid a small shell vibe inside himself. Once it was in the right place, he squeezed his legs shut and activated the device.

“Ahh,” Luke moaned. His eyes closed, and for a moment he was lost in the delicious sensation running through him. He could feel Wes’s delight through the bond and soon opened his eyes so he could return his attention to his packmate.

A tremer ran through Wes broad frame when Luke reached back out for him, anticipation building. Wes swore dildos felt best when it was someone else using them on him.

Grasping the base of the toy, Luke began to thrust the it in and out of Wes, sometimes focusing on driving it deep and other times twisting is around so that the molded cock rubbed against new areas inside him.

Luke dragged Wes’s head to his as he sped up his thrusts. The kiss this time was sloppy as they panted and moaned against each other. The sensation of penetration flooded the packbond until Luke felt like he was the one being fucked by the toy. He tried to push his own sensations back through the bond and soon Wes let out a yell and came, his muscles clenching tight on the toy as he was pushed past his peak.

Maintaining the thrusts through Wes’s orgasm, Luke began to move the toy faster once Wes’s body relaxed. If he did this right, he could probably tease one more orgasm out of Wes before they were both satisfied.

They continued to kiss, lips moving against each others as Luke continued to work his packmate over. Wes may have been psychically null but he’d always had a knack for making sure Luke could easily access his thoughts and feelings. His mind eagerly offered up his pleasure for Luke to feel through the Force while he just as eagerly accepted everything Luke shared with him through the packbond. Soon, they came together, unable to separate the different sensations running through each of their bodies.

Once Luke’s mind began to clear, he tugged the vibe out of himself and Force tossed it onto the counter beyond the shower. Then, still holding the handrail, he used the other to reach for Wes.

“That’s enough, love,” Luke said gently as he drew the toy out of his packmate’s excited body.

Wes could only whimper in response and then he slumped against the wall as he started to come down from the sensual high Luke had brought him to.

“I don’t know how you’re so damned energetic,” Luke teased him once Wes started to move again. “You’re always practically bouncing off the walls after every heat. I just want to sleep.”

“Hobbie says I’m too extraverted for my own-”

Wes broke off the sentence, jaw clamping shut. A flicker of pain ran across his face.

“Hey, it’s alright.” Luke touched Wes’s arm and focused on their packbond, pushing his affection for the other omega through it. “Let’s finish showering and then we’ll talk, okay?”

After a deep sigh, Wes nodded slowly. “Okay.”

* * *

 

“Before you say anything,” Luke said, passing Wes a mug of hot chocolate, “I want you to know that I really don’t think the others meant to leave you alone. This Is just one big, terrible accident.”

Accepting the mug, Wes put down his fork down next to his picked over plate and rubbed the back of his neck. “I know that. I mean, I think I do. It’s just… It’s not just the flash heat,” he admitted. “It’s… everything. There’s no place for me with them anymore. They changed the pack. Gavin and Inyri joined them and Tycho… they’re all focused on Tycho. I thought it would get better once we had some time together but it didn’t. They weren’t ignoring me or anything, far from it. But it wasn’t right. Everything about how they were interacting with each other and with me was… wrong. I felt like I was on the outside staring in at everyone else.”

“You and they have all been through something terrible. I think it would have improved in time. It hasn’t actually been all that long, after all. Less than a week since you were all reunited.”

Wes didn’t respond and sat staring into the dark surface of his drink. Misery poured through the packbond.

“Do you want to rejoin them?” Luke asked after the quiet had stretched on for a bit.

“... I”m not sure I get to chose that,” Wes said. “I don’t know if it can be fixed. I’ve always known that they were close but right now, they feel so far away. Like if I take too many steps away from them, they’ll be gone for good.”

“That’s the packbonds,” Luke explained. “It’s what binds packs together and after everything that’s happened, the ones connecting you to them and them to you have been badly damaged. But it can be repaired if you want to rejoin them.

“But-”

Luke raised his hand, halting Wes mid-word. “Packs are made up of a group of people who have bound themselves together. The packbonds are the binding mechanism, and in a pack, they stretch from one member to the other and are also usually centered on one or two people. Most commonly it’s the alpha, other times an omega if the pack has one. That person anchors the entire pack, maintaining the packbonds, holding everyone together, and providing a sort of- of lubricant easing what could otherwise be contentious relationships. As a side effect of that, packs instinctively focus a lot of attention on the anchor, giving them extra consideration and care.

“More importantly, packbonds, or pairbonds, can’t be forced. Everyone involved in the bond has to want the packbond to be formed. What’s happened here is that the Rogue pack almost collapsed in on itself when you apparently died. Tycho instinctively switched his presentation to omega and managed to secure the packbonds through a flash heat. Gavin and Inyri bonding with the pack also helped, as they effectively helped shore up the broken structure. Now that they’re back, the packbonds need to be shuffled around for things to go back to the way they were before, plus you would have to form a packbond with Gavin and Inyri if you all chose to stay with the Rogue pack.”

Wes stewed over Luke’s words for a long while. “What if Tycho doesn’t want to let go? Until now, I’ve always been able to find all the others. Through the packbonds, I guess. He has that now. What if he doesn’t want to lose that connection?”

“You and Tycho are very different people. You enjoy being the pack’s anchor and while he’s managed to do that work so far, I’m not sure he can hold all that weight for as long or as well as you can.”

“I bet he can. Tycho’s one of the strongest people I know.”

“Wes.”

He sighed. “Even if Tycho doesn’t want to stay the anchor, it doesn’t change that fact that they left me. I woke up, Luke, and I felt like I was on fire. Everything hurt and instead of being there to help, they left me to deal with it by myself.”

“They didn’t mean to-”

“They didn’t even tell me they were alive!”

Luke blinked as a fresh wave of pain washed through Wes.

“They were in quarantine for weeks. The New Republic knew they were alive even longer. And no one told me. I found out when the kriffing holonews reported it! That they were all alive and there was going to be a celebratory party and-” His voice broke off with a choke. He took several deep breaths, visibly trembling. “I was here. On Coruscant. Alone because I’d told my parents to leave when my sister went into labor early.

“They were all alive and no one thought I was important enough to be told.”

Wes’s voice had gone hollow and his entire body crumbled like air had been let out of it. Putting his drink aside, he collapsed down onto the couch, twisting so he could bury his head in the pillows arranged on top, then drew his knees up to his chest.

The agony from earlier was back, a sense of loss so profound Luke found himself shaking in grief as the pain poured across the packbond.

He set aside any further thought of trying to get Wes to talk, to drink, or eat more. Wes had gone from mourning his pack, to learning they were alive in the most callous manner possible, and then to crashing head long into a solitary flash heat in a matter of days. The whiplash alone from the rapid changes in circumstance would have been damaging. The extremes of each and every situation had exasperated the injuries until it was a wonder Wes was hanging on to his sanity.

Luke crawled next to Wes, using his own body to block out the rest of the room as he wrapped himself around the wounded man. Fear and pain flooded the packbond and it was a long time before Wes even acknowledged his presence, let alone responded. He was so very afraid. Afraid of being alone. Afraid of being hurt again. Afraid of being discarded and ignored. Every barrier and mask he’d donned to try and mask that fear had been stripped away until every bit his trauma was exposed, both past and present.

Eventually, Wes shifted position and allowed Luke to properly hold him. He clung to the packbond as best he could, desperate to keep this one thread promising him love and safety. Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Luke leaned forward to murmur into Wes’s ear.

“We’re going to talk to the Rogues tomorrow,” Luke said. Wes went rigid, but Luke pressed on. “Whatever else they are, neither Wedge, Tycho, or Hobbie are deliberately cruel. We’re missing intel and the only way to get it and to figure out exactly what happened is to talk to them.

“I’ll be here with you the whole time, Wes. No matter what happens, I won’t ever let you be alone again.”

* * *

“It’s been a while,” Wedge said as Face slid into the booth across from him with his drink. The caf smelled of spices and the foam on top had been poured into a complex array of interconnected circles.

Wedge looked down at his own drink. The simple latte was underwhelming by comparison and noticeably lacking in dairy-based art.

He had to suppress a sigh. Life was just conspiring against him.

“I wish it was under better circumstances,” Face replied. His dark eyes roamed oh-so casually around the small cafe as his hands automatically started mixing in an extra thing of creamer into his caf, disrupting the foam art.

Apparently satisfied by whatever he saw, Face set down the empty creamer container and discreetly slipped an oversized comm link onto the table, activating it with his thumb.

“That should keep out mechanical eavesdropping,” Face said. “I’m not anticipating trouble, but there’s no reason to invite any all the same.”

Wedge studied Face for a minute, briefly cataloging the changes that had been wrought by the past two-and-some-change years. Most of the lingering roundness in Face’s cheeks had vanished, making him look much older than he actually was. His skin was somewhat tanned and his hair just long enough to be easily molded into a variety of styles. More importantly, he had a steady, confident air about him that spoke of experience and comfort with these sorts of clandestine dealings.

“I’m glad you and the Rogues, most of them, at least, managed to survive Krennel and Isard,” Face said as he pulled his attention back to Wedge. He began to empty packets of sweetener into his drink. “Given what we now know, that was no easy task.”

“We’re still struggling with the consequences,” Wedge said somberly.

“I know. Better than you probably realise, actually.” Face paused to take a slow drink from his sugary nightmare and Wedge felt another pang of misery. Wes would have loved that drink.

“Cracken recalled us shortly after the Battle of Distna. When Isard tried to steal the _Lusankya_ , we had been placed in one of the smaller hanger bays as a back-up measure if the attempt to capture or kill her failed. Before then, we were the second team working on puzzling out her true intentions. It’s aggravating to admit, but Booster Terrik managed to suss out her plan thirteen hours before we did.”

“Booster has a knack for crooked thinking,” Wedge said.

Face’s mouth quirked briefly in a half smile before fading. “More importantly, before we were assigned to the _Lusankya_ and before your message to High Command arrived, we were brought back under the pretext of setting up for a possible insertion in the Ciutric Hegemony.”

“Pretext?”

“Admiral Ackbar had the situation with Krennel well in hand. Our skills were not needed.”

Wedge’s eyes narrowed. “So why were you brought back?”

Face pursed his lips, them took a long sip. “Based on how the information was presented to us and how our free time was scheduled, we believe Cracken was using us to make a play at Wes Janson.”

A foot collided with his leg just as Wedge was about to shout. It forcefully, and abruptly, reminded him of his surroundings.

“We heard about the Battle of Distna, of course,” Face continued with only a brief pause. “And those of us who you and Janson trained wanted, of course, to check in on him and see if there was anything we could do to help.

“He wasn’t in great shape, naturally. But we kept visiting and Tyria said it was helping. And she’d know better than the rest of us.”

“What do you mean you think Cracken was making a play at Wes? What was he trying to do?”

“Simply put, I think he was initially trying to push him to rejoin the Wraiths. We would have been happy to have him, of course, and it could have given him a sense of purpose, or at least, a reason to keep living.”

Face took another sip and did another quick scan of the space beyond Wedge’s shoulders.

Wedge’s hand spasmed under the table. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to pick up his latte and drink. While enraging, it was true Wes had been struggling to find new meaning for himself. And however upsetting Cracken could be, the Wraiths would have been a welcome, and safe, refuge for him. And meanwhile, Cracken would have secured himself a valuable asset for New Republic Intelligence.

“Cracken provided us with detailed intel about what had happened to the Rogues and our schedules somehow always allowed a few of us at a time to be at loose ends during visiting hours at the hospital Janson was being treated at. It wasn’t hard to see what Cracken’s plan was, and frankly, we thought it was a good one.”

Face’s hands tightened on his hot drink and he gave Wedge a grim look.

“I don’t think I can fully describe just how broken Janson was by the battle and losing both his squadron and his pack. I’d like to think that we would have found a way back here even if we hadn’t been recalled, just so we could be certain he had some familiar faces nearby.”

“I appreciate that,” Wedge said quietly.

Feeling more glum by the minute, he drank more of his latte. From Cracken’s description of Wes’s injuries, it probably had been for the better that they hadn’t located his emergency beacon. He doubted Isard’s hidden base had sufficient resources to provide the level of medical care he’d needed and in any case, Wes simply would have become an unusually valuable hostage. As awful as things were right now, this scenario was probably the only one where Wes actually lived.

“Where we have concerns,” Face said, “is with what happened after your message reached High Command. I can understand Wes being considered a potential Intelligence leak. His behavior would have changed dramatically once you were revealed to be alive. What we’re struggling to understand, and where our concerns lie, is in how it appears Cracken didn’t stop trying to recruit Wes.

“It’s the only reason it makes sense that Wes wasn’t brought in at the end to help with planning. It’s the only reason it makes sense neither he nor you were informed about each other while in quarantine. And it’s the only reason it makes sense for him to have worked so hard to keep Iella Wessiri, Mirax Horn, and Booster Terrik too busy to talk to him about the celebration planned for when you were released.”

“Then this mess is all his fault,” Wedge hissed angrily.

“Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know what exactly is happening in your pack, but I do feel confident saying that Cracken helped aggravate the situation.” Face took a long sip from his drink. “Cracken doesn’t have a pack. As far as I can tell, he also doesn’t fully understand them. To him, I think, packs are just a somewhat complicated family. And his own family has always been rather… traditional, as the Imperials defined it. He has a strong, capable Corellian-born wife who confines herself to household duties and a few hobbies, and children who have always obediently carried out his wishes.”

“Pash has been working hard to set himself apart from his father,” Wedge said.

“That’s good to hear. I hoped as much when I heard he was flying with the Rogues. Perhaps his sister Dena will decide to do the same someday.”

“Cracken was trying to aggravate pack tensions enough that Wes would reach out to you and rejoin the Wraiths,” Wedge summarized after a few moments of silence.

“Giving him at least one new asset and possibly more if the Rogue pack split. He’s always wanted to sign Hobbie on and give him proper training in Intelligence operations and slicing. Major Klivian’s self-taught efforts are impressive.”

Wedge drank, finishing off his drink. Then, almost conversationally, he asked, “Is there a good reason my next destination shouldn’t be the Mirage so I can go punch Cracken in the face? Because I’d really, really like to do that.”

“Security at NRI headquarters would have noted me getting into you speeder. It’s going to be a few weeks at least before you’re let back in the building.”

“Not the perfect loyal son?” Wedge asked with narrowed eyes.

“We Wraiths are valued for our independence and willingness to go against orders if needed.” Face smiled slightly, a hint of darkness touching his expression. “We’re still more useful than not. He won’t get rid of us anytime soon.”

Wedge fiddled with his empty mug. “Cracken’s running wild.”

“More supervision would probably be helpful,” Face agreed. “He’s not evil, not really. But he gets easily caught up in believing NRI is the only thing keeping the Republic together and that means he goes too far.”

“Well, I’ll be sure to mention this to Admiral Ackbar.” Sighing, Wedge pushed his mug and saucer away. “I should head back home. Unless there was something you needed to tell me?”

Face shook his head. “No, I just wanted to make certain you knew what Cracken had been doing. For Janson’s sake, as well as yours and your pack’s.”

“I appreciate that. Assuming we get our current drama sorted out, you and the others should come by and visit. Wes will appreciate it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Face said. He raised his cup in a small salute. “You have our best wishes, General. I hope your pack can heal from Battle of Distna and Isard’s machinations.”

Wedge gave him a small nod. “We’ll see you soon.”

As he left, his eyes automatically skimmed over the different tables he passed. Tyria gave him a small smile from one and Kell tilted his head slightly from another. He couldn’t immediately spot the other Wraiths but he assumed they were all nearby.

Fighting back a smile, Wedge departed the cafe, feeling both appreciative and amused that the Wraiths were hovering so close and so protectively. It was comforting to be reminded that they had friends and allies wherever they went.


	6. Chapter 6

Sighing, Inyri rolled her shoulders forward and stretched her arms out for a moment. Relaxing, she let her head loll backwards. She’d been sitting hunched over a datapad for far too long.

Tossing her device onto the low table in front of her, Inyri rose and moved around to the open space on the far side to continue stretching.

“Holonet comm boards had random interesting things,” she said, voice muffled by her knees as she bent double and pressed her hands to the ground. “I saved a few on my datacard. People were very focused on how to improve the next heat after a pack crisis.”

She preened a little as she felt eyes on her and a subtle shift in the energy coming across her packbonds from Hobbie and Tycho. They’d been working for hours. A break wouldn’t be the worst idea.

Shifting her weight forward into her hands, she brought her feet up and bent her arms and legs until her knees were resting on her elbows and her feet were pointed at the floor at a forty-five degree angle. After a few heartbeats while her upper back stretched, she extended her legs out again and lifted them up into a full handstands. Then she shifted her shoulders downward and tucked her pelvis in, feet dropping towards her head until her body was curved like the letter mern and her front was being beautifully stretched.

When she dropped back down to the floor and righted herself, she found Tycho watching her admiringly from his arm chair and Hobbie completely red faced from his seat on the other end of the couch from hers.

“The boards discussed things like leaning into primal instincts and making a proper nest, lowering the lights, playing nature sounds, and stuff like that. Things to help set everyone’s subconscious at ease.”

“Hobbie?” Tycho prompted after a few moments of silence.

“What?"

“Have you found anything useful?”

Blinking, Hobbie forced his attention back to his datapad. “Um. Lots of discussion about the mechanisms of packbonding and how they intersect with heats. There’s been a lot of research into how packbonds are formed and broken. Time, proximity, and a heat will help with promoting the physiological part of packbonds but what we really need to do is shift the pack anchor from Tycho to Wes.”

“Anchor?” Inyri asked from the floor. Spreading her legs, she bent her torso forward until she was lying on the ground, feet extended to either side.

“It’s, um, the anchor is what holds a pack together,” Hobbie said distractedly. “The point where multiple packbonds intersect and are held together to form a pack. The anchor is usually an alpha but can also be an omega if the pack has one… You’re really flexible.”

“I am,” Inyri smirked.

“How is the anchor transferred?” Tycho asked. It was a bit amusing that he was the one holding them to task.

Hobbie tore his eyes off Inyri and looked over. “Haven’t quite figured that out. The papers descend into a lot of technical jargon at that point.”

“That might be the technical description of my own discoveries,” Tycho said lightly. Tapping the side of his datapad, he leaned back. “Once you get past all the statements saying “Don’t have a pack crisis, don’t damage your omega,” the consensus seems to be to clear away misunderstandings and make restitution for mistakes. Words alone don’t usually suffice, acts of penance and apology are needed to help repair the damaged packbonds as they provide substantial proof of a pack’s dedication to the slighted member.

“After that, well, the pack health focused holosites all basically agree that for most packs, it all comes down to sex. Heats are an excellent focal point to facilitate forming and repairing packbonds but close intimacy of any kind will also suffice. Non-heat sex is almost as fast as heat sex, and non-sexual intimacy can work fairly quickly if everyone is properly focused.”

“I bet transferring the anchor is easy with sex,” Inyri said as she pushed back into a sitting position.

“It could be. And could explain why the transfer wasn’t made earlier. He and I never actually did anything directly besides a blowjob here and there. Wes is naturally submissive when it comes to sex and I was having… trouble… shifting out of a similar mindset. The idea of being actively engaged in penetration with him was actually intimidating.”

Hobbie looked surprised at Tycho’s thoughtful statement. “It’s hard to believe you weren’t feeling dominant.” He glanced at Inyri. “During Wes’s first heat, Tycho was naked and inside him within ninety seconds of entering the room. Afterwards, he talked Wedge into trying anal for the first time and got him going so much he almost tied off inside him.”

“You almost knotted Wedge?” Inyri asked, her voice tight. She had the sudden urge to squeeze her legs together.

“That time, yes. He’s taken plenty of knots since then,” Tycho said. A sense of lazy arousal began to pulse from him. “In short, Wes wants as many cocks inside him as he can get, Hobbie loves giving oral sex, I gladly fuck whomever I can as much as I can however I can, and Wedge has a size kink. He loves knots, big cocks, and being pinned down by larger people.”

“He’s got to have sex with Gavin, then,” Inyri groaned.

Tycho grinned, bright and predatory. “That’s what I was pondering earlier. How to prepare Wedge to take Gavin’s cock. And possibly even his knot.”

“Oh, kriff,” Hobbe whimpered.

“Mm. Gavin will be so worried about hurting Wedge he’ll need to lie down on his back and let Wedge ride him.” Tycho ran his hand down the front of his trousers as he spun the scenario he’d been developing for his attentive packmates. Desire was building in both of them.

“We’ll want to be facing them from below so we can watch Gavin’s cock push into him,” Tycho continued, pressing harder on his hardening cock. “Wedge’s ass will have to stretch so much to take Gavin’s cock and it’ll go so deep in him. Wedge will be moaning and whimpering as he works his way down.”

Breaking off with a low groan, Tycho popped open his trousers and drew out his cock so he could stroke it. He heard Hobbie whimper and Inyri suck in a breath, and immediately pushed his trousers lower so he could spread his legs more and show off his cock better.

“Wedge will take Gavin up to his knot. He can’t take the knot the first time they have sex. Gavin will freak if Wedge passes out, so we’ll instead watch it pop in and out of Wedge’s hole and make him scream, or maybe just press up against his body with each thrust.

“The sounds Wedge is going to make as Gavin wrecks his ass are going to be glorious,” Tycho moaned as he masturbated. “They’ll be unlike any we’ve heard before. Wedge is so good at taking cock that it won’t be long before he’s riding Gavin hard, screaming each time Gavin fills him.”

Hobbie was panting now, a hand wrapped around his own exposed cock. Inyri, however, hadn’t moved. She was watching Tycho intently, face flushed with arousal and a visible wet spot growing larger at the crotch of her pants.

“Wedge might come before Gavin,” Tycho groaned. He could practically see all the possibilities playing out before his eyes. “Or he might not. Either way, Gavin’s going to have to roll him over and take him from behind to come. Wedge will be so overloaded with pleasure bear the end he’ll be all but limp. All the better for Gavin to finish destroying his ass. He’ll mount him and just brutalize Wedge’s ass with his big cock, all while Wedge wails and begs for more.

“When Gavin comes, he’ll slam inside him so deep, Wedge’s vision will go white. Come will flood his body and immediately start leaking out because there’s just so much of it.”

Tycho’s back arched as his hand moved frantically over his cock. He was so close…

“Wedge’s ass will be gaping and filthy. We could all come inside him after that and he might not even notice his ass will be so stretched out. Shoot more come inside him and then get a plug in him so he’s sloshing as he moves he’s so full.

“Gotta lick Gavin’s cock clean while Wedge gets filled back up. Make sure he knows how much we loved watching him fuck Wedge.”

“You have to get him comfortable with group sex,” Inyri said knowingly. Her voice was deep and purring. “How else are we going to get to watch him take a cock in his ass? Or maybe you’d prefer to be his first? Break in another virgin ass like Wedge’s was?”

With a strangled cry, Tycho came, come shooting out of his cock to cover his hand and hit his shirt.

Inyri surged to her feet, dragging her pants and sensible underwear off in a single motion. Returning to the couch, she pushed Hobbie down onto his back, ignoring his still erect cock.

When he was flat and staring up at her with wide eyes, she climbed on top of him, straddling his head.

“Tycho said you like oral?” she asked, voice tight.

Hobbie shifted his gaze to her crotch, drinking in the sight of her pale pubic hair and skin, flushed and swollen lower lips, partially exposed clit, and the slick visibly leaking from her core. Without a word, he grabbed her thighs and pulled her down onto his face.

He needed a brief moment to orient himself; he hadn’t serviced a female in a long time. But soon he was teasing her clit and tasting her slick as his tongue stroked her. His hands joined in, pushing her up briefly so he could spread her lips and admire her body, eyes drifting from her clit to her mons to her vagina and more.

Then, pulling her back down, his tongue began to slide through her folds and creases, her inner and outer lips, her slick passage, and her hooded clit. He experimented with different strokes, changing direction, going from back-and-forth to circular motions, and varying the pressure.

Hobbie concentrated, his hands moving back to her thighs so he could feel her move or flinch, listening to the tone of her cries so he could better learn what she liked and disliked.

Her hand slipped down and his tongue ran across her finger as she started to tease her clit. He tried to pay attention to how she touched herself, but struggled as he got lost in her smell and taste.

He gasped for air as she rode his face, inhaling as she rose up and occasionally tapping her leg for space so he could breathe.

Mostly, though, he sucked and licked at her body, teasing her perineum and opening as much as he thrust his tongue inside her. She moaned and panted above him, thighs squeezing his head as she rode his face and leaked slick all over him.

When she finally came, she was leaning on the armchest of the couch, body heaving as she finally crossed that peak. Panting, Inyri felt wobbly as her body began to relax. When she noticed Hobbie’s panting breath on her body, she quickly climbed off of him.

The gamma was almost gasping, eyes dazed and his face liberally smeared with her slick. She glanced up just in time to see Tycho squeeze out another orgasm, come coating his now exposed chest.

Which was not a terrible idea. Pulling off her shirt and bra, Inyri turned her attention back to Hobbie. Poor man hadn’t come yet. Moving down the couch, she climbed on top of his legs.

“Hobbie,” she said, catching his attention. As though he could read her mind, Tycho leaned over and lifted Hobbie’s head up and slid a pillow beneath him so he could more easily watch her.

“This poor pack as been just males for years,” she said sympathetically. “You haven’t had any proper female attention in a long time, have you?”

Hobbie’s darkened cock twitched when she cupped her breasts, holding them out at an attractive angle. The round, soft mounds rolled easily in her hands.

Beyond them, Inyri could just make out Tycho teasing his cock as he settled back to watch them.

Leaning forward, enjoying the intense focus on her, Inyri sucked on the tip of Hobbie’s cock for a minute. She didn’t try to take more, as she’d never enjoyed giving blowjobs, but she did tease his slit with her tongue.

“Let me show you what a female can do for you,” she cooed after she pulled off.

“Between the cushions,” Tycho said in a hungry voice.

Pausing, Inyri reached down between Hobbie’s legs and found the gap between the couch cushions. Almost immediately, her fingers found a slick tube. She laughed when she pulled it free and discovered lube.

“You’re a randy pack, aren’t you?” she said teasingly. Squeezing some of the lube onto her hand, she transferred it to Hobbie’s cock with a quick once over. He whimpered at the impromptu handjob, then again as she caressed more lube onto her breasts. “How about something none of them can give you?”

Smirking, she leaned forward and began to stroke his cock. She was so close her chest was pressed right up against his crotch. She stroked him up and down, brushing his thick shaft against her breasts and tapping head to her chest before she nestled it between her breasts.

Her breasts jiggled as she ran fingers along Hobbie’s cock and it bounced back and forth. She took her time teasing him, reveling in his almost continuous moans. Eventually, she made sure he was properly tucked between her breasts and used her hands to squeeze them around him.

Slowly, she began to move up and down, one arm resting on his leg for extra leverage. His cock slid easily between her breasts, the head appearing then disappearing as she moved. Every now and then she paused and began massaging her breasts, squeezing and making them shift in different ways.

Hobbie watched helplessly, utterly at her mercy. Her breasts were soft, softer than anything else he could remember right now. The way his cock slid between the mounds was so different from the various holes he was used to enjoying and he had the additional visual treat of seeing his cock emerge from between Inyri’s breasts.

Moaning and whimpering, he desperately dug his fingers into the couch and began to thrust. Inyri kept moving and squeezing her round, soft, gorgeous breasts around his cock, smiling coyly up at him as she dropped lower to tease his knot.

Grunting, he finally came, shuddering slightly has new pleasure erupted inside him. His hips thrust instinctively and when he looked down, he saw a white river of come spilling onto her breasts. It kept flowing in wave after wave until her breasts were thoroughly marked and some had even splattered over her face.

Sitting up, she swiped some of the come off her cheek and thoughtfully stuck her finger in her mouth to get a taste. Lips quirking slightly, she scooped up more and offered it to him. Groaning, he licked her finger clean.

Seeing how pleased she was with his response, he sat up and leaned forward so he could begin cleaning off her chest. He lick across the top of one breast, then the other. His tongue chased little streams of come as it rolled down her skin and soon he was sucking on her breasts and reveling in the salty flavor clinging to the soft skin. When she began to moan, pleasure thrumming through the packbond, he slid a hand between her legs and began to lightly play with her clit.

He couldn’t wait to learn all the different ways she liked to be touched.

* * *

“I can’t believe Cracken would do all that,” Gavin said unhappily as Wedge parked their speeder at the building housing the Rogue pack. He was so dismayed he hadn’t noticed the change in emotions coming from their packmates across the tethers.

“It’s honestly not all that surprising,” Wedge said. “What matters is that we know now, and that we’ve learned a lot about what happened to Wes. If the others were even half as successful, we might actually stand a chance at bringing Wes back.”

“I hope so,” Gavin replied fervently.

Wedge led him through the corridors of the apartment building. He seemed oddly exasperated.

Before he could pursue that thought further, they reached the apartment. Wedge entered the door code and as the door slid open, he grabbed Gavin’s arm and pulled him inside.

Which was good because he’d frozen when the smell of sex hit his nose and he saw the scene unfolding on the couch.

Gavin stood stock still as the doors slid shut and Wedge calmly circled the couch and greeted Tycho with a kiss. The delta pilot was naked and masturbating, come clinging to his chest. More importantly, Hobbie and Inyri were also naked as they lay on the couch. Inyri was moaning as she leaned back against the armrest, one hand resting in Hobbie’s hair as he pleasured her with his mouth, the other squeezing one of her breasts.

Not knowing what to do and blushing furiously, Gavin looked to Wedge.

The beta was intermittently kissing Tycho as he extracted an accounting of their work so far.

“So you decided to take a sex break?” Wedge teased.

“Sex is an efficient way-“ Tycho paused as Wedge kissed him, “to maintain packbonds-“ another kiss, “Hobbie can tell you all about it.”

Wedge kissed him again, long and lingering. “He better,” he said after pulling away.

“In the meantime…” Tycho said hopefully, making Wedge laugh.

“Bedroom. I want room to screw you properly and then to watch Gavin do the same.”

A startled squeak escaped Gavin at the sound of his name. He couldn’t deny how hard he’d become, though. Wedge and Tycho began to make their way to the bedroom and Gavin followed along behind, feeling like he was in a proverbial leash.

Wedge was naked by the time be came in, his uniform a crumpled heap on the floor. Tycho lay on his back on the bed, legs spread and his balls tucked securely one hand. Without hesitation, Wedge climbed on top of him and thrust all the way inside.

Tycho’s body arched dramatically at the immediate penetration. He moaned as Wedge pulled his hips back and thrust in again. Soon, all Gavin could do was whimper at the dirty sound of bodies slapping against each others and the squish of Wedge cock driving into Tycho’s wet opening.

“Gav,” Tycho whined. “Want. Suck you.” He cried out as Wedge thrust harder into him.

“Kneel next to him,” Wedge panted. “Don’t come in his mouth. You’re going to come in here.” The last word was accompanied by another hard thrust and a loud squeal from Tycho.

For a brief moment, Gavin’s alpha instincts urged him to push back against Wedge’s orders, to make _him_ submit. Another set of instincts rolled their proverbial eyes. No one could make Wedge bend a knee. Not even him.

Undressing, Gavin climbed up next to Tycho, made clumsy by the rocking bed and his own arousal. As ordered, he knelt when he reached Tycho, offering him his cock. Pleasure raced through him when Tycho got his mouth on him.

Gavin moaned helplessly as Tycho sucked his cock. The delta was crying out with each thrust and the vibrations from the sounds made the hair in the back Gavin’s neck stand on end.

“Almost…” Wedge panted after several minutes of wet, sloppy sounding sex. A few moments later, his hips slowed, driving even deeper as he came.

“Ahh,” he panted. After lingering for a moment, Wedge pulled out. He used one hand to spread open Tycho’s passage, eyes lingering with satisfaction at the sight of his come inside the other man. Releasing Tycho’s hole, he swatted at his backside. “Roll over and get your ass in the air. I want Gavin to fuck you so hard your cunt is aching for hours.”

Tycho moaned around Gavin’s cock and almost reluctantly let it slip out of his mouth. Squeezing his legs together, he rolled onto his stomach and then got up on his knees and spread his legs. A thin bead of come began to slowly leak out of him. Looking up at Gavin, he smiled, loose and almost dreamy.

“Fuck me with your big cock, Gavin.”

How could he say no to that?

Gavin scrambled down and positioned himself behind Tycho while Wedge moved out of the way. For a brief moment, as he stared as Tycho’s come soaked opening, he flashed back to the flash heat on Isard’s base.

There, Hobbie had blown him while Wedge fucked Tycho and Inyri laid beneath him, moaning as Wedge fucked Tycho’s cock into her. When he’d finished, Hobbie had taken his turn and Wedge came over and started jerking him off. Neither of them could stop watching as Hobbie plowed Tycho hard and deep. When he was done and he pulled his cock out of Tycho’s lust driven body, Wedge had pushed him forward.

He’d stared down at Tycho’s body and all the come leaking out of him as he moaned helplessly, hips straining backwards while he begged for another cock to fuck him. Inyri slipped out from beneath Tycho and pressed against his back, taking his cock in her small hand and guiding the tip into Tycho. And with his cock just barely feeling the warmth from Tycho’s body, Gavin had given in and fucked him.

He’d never forget how Tycho felt that night, hot and tight around his cock, impossibly slick and just slightly too small to get his knot inside him, at least at first. The heat scent made the world melt away until all he could see what Tycho’s come streaked ass waiting for him in a perfect submissive omega presentation position. The sounds Tycho had made when Gavin fucked him were unlike anything he’d ever heard, cries, wails, and desperate pleas for more, faster, deeper, harder. He’d fucked Tycho long and hard until his body completely gave in just in time for Gavin to shove his knot into his packmate’s desperate body and tie off.

He came to bent over Tycho’s back, spilling his seed into his body, and mouthing his neck and shoulder. An urge sizzled in his gut to bite down hard and mark him so everyone would know who he belonged to. A flash of possessiveness flared inside him when Wedge approached but a single narrow eyed look was all it took for Gavin to remember his place. He’d found himself letting out a soft whine, head angling to expose his neck. Wedge’s hand clamped down on his neck, nails biting his skin, and the drive to fight for dominance faded as his alpha confirmed his place in the pack.

Wedge’s order now carried that same authority and with Tycho’s begging words still ringing in his ears, Gavin slid his cock into his delta packmate and began to fuck. Tycho groaned as his cock entered him and Gavin moaned because _Force_ , he was tight. He wanted to live inside this tight wet warmth forever. His hips moved steadily back and forth, driving his cock in and out of Tycho’s body. Wedge spoke up occasionally, ordering him to go faster, slower, harder, or to tease his prostate.

He couldn’t not obey Wedge and altered his pace as he was told to. His body burned with the need to claim Tycho but was restrained by Wedge’s order to fuck him slower, slower, a little slower. Gavin felt like he was moving in slow motion, Tycho was begging again, pleading him to fuck him faster, but Wedge wouldn’t let him. He cast a desperate look at Wedge but the beta was ignoring him in favor of settling back against the padded headboard so Inyri could mount his cock. Hobbie also appeared and slid into place next to Wedge so he could slide his cock into Tycho’s mouth.

“Now fuck him, Gavin, as hard and fast and deep as you can. Come in his cunt, tie off if you can,” Wedge ordered as Inryi began to ride him.

Gavin groaned and after he pulled his hips back again, he slammed them forward. The thrust forced Tycho deeper onto Hobbie’s cock and his scream was muffled by the gamma’s thick cock. Moaning, Gavin thrust again and suddenly wished they had a holocam set up. He’d love to see what Tycho looked with a big cock stuffed in either end.

His thrusts came hard and fast, just like he’d been ordered. Tycho rocked back and forth between him and Hobbie, accompanied by unending muffled cries. His body clenched down in orgasm and Gavin couldn’t stop his cock from fucking him. He was close, so very close, and desperate to come.

He tried to watch Tycho suck Hobbie’s cock but couldn’t see enough of what was happening so Gavin instead switched his gaze to Wedge and Inyri. The blond woman was bouncing eagerly on Wedge’s cock, which glistened with slick every time she rose up. One of her hands was pressed against her crotch as she rubbed her clit and Wedge was playing with her breasts, squeezing them together over and over again. They both kept looking over at Tycho, eyes filled with lust as they watched him get wrecked.

Wedge had ordered him to tie off if he could and Tycho’s passage was staring to lengthen again like it had during heat, accepting more and more of Gavin’s cock as he continued to hammer away at him. He finally got his knot inside in time for a few desperate, struggling thrusts in and out before he came. As orgasm swept through him, Gavin’s knot swelled and set of a new wave of mini-orgasms as the knot locked into place in Tycho’s shuddering, clenching passage. At his head, Hobbie’s yanked his cock out of Tycho’s mouth and came on his face, shooting ropes of come all over him.

Gavin swayed as he desperately inhaled. Black spots were swimming in his vision as he struggled to breath. They began to fade quickly, thankfully, and Gavin was soon able to pay attention to matters beyond his own body.

Tycho was clumsily mouthing at Hobbie’s softening cock as though trying to get him hard again. In fact, Hobbie had to pull his hips away and push Tycho’s shoulders and head onto the bed to get him to settle down. Humming softly, Hobbie stroked his hair and slowly, Tycho’s body began to come down from its mindless pleasurable high and relax. The tight, tight, _tight_ pressure on Gavin’s cock also eased off into something more comfortable for both of them.

Inyri was riding Wedge faster, panting rapidly as she neared orgasm. Wedge’s hands held onto her hips, helping her to move on his cock while he sucked on her breasts. She had both her hands on his shoulders as she quickly moved herself up and down. Her head fell back as she gasped through her orgasm. Wedge moaned into her chest and his hips jerked his cock up into a few times as she pulled him across his own peak.

They both tumbled down onto the bed as their orgasms ended. Wedge kissed Inyri for a moment in a long, but gentle embrace which she happily returned. He stroked her sides and down her hips before pulling out of her and collapsed beside her.

After a few minutes of just lying there, with satiated contentment purring through the packbonds, Inyri and Wedge forced themselves upright so they could attend to the rest of their pack. Inyri bent down to help Hobbie with Tycho while Wedge leaned against Gavin.

“Doing alright?” Wedge asked.

Gavin nodded slowly, suddenly tired. He really wanted to lie down but it wasn’t as easy as that. He was alpha, and his knot took considerably longer to go down than a gamma or delta’s.

Sensing his tiredness, Wedge and the others were able to help them reposition themselves. Gavin sighed contently as a pillow was tucked under his head. Tycho was within arms reach but not right next to him, as the angle of penetration provided by vaginal sex didn’t make that comfortable for very long. What the position did do was provide plenty of places for their pack to slide into and that was an opportunity they eagerly took.

“Go on to sleep,” Wedge ordered from next to Gavin. “We’ll get back to business later.”

He closed his eyes obediently. There was still something off about their pack, but this was as close to contentment as Gavin had felt from his packmates since that first mating rush months earlier. They needed Wes, they truly did. There was a space for him that none of them could fill. He was confident in his pack, though, to bring Wes back.

Feeling content and warm with his knot securely locked inside Tycho’s body and his pack in place to keep them all safe, Gavin let himself drift off to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

As the buzzing at the edge of his mind continued to grow, Tycho buried his face in his pillow, trying to block it out. Instead of growing softer, new notes began murmur and grow until they were a heady mix of chatter, shouts, squeals, and grumbles. The notes pulled at him, tugging him this way and that, each demanding his full attention as they began to clash until they were nothing more than a horrible cacophony echoing through his skull.

Tycho opened his eyes and suppressed a sigh. Another day had begun and his packmates’ waking minds wouldn’t allow him any more sleep.

He was alone in the bed but the door was propped open to allow the sounds of his pack moving around to drift in. There were only four of them outside but Tycho could sense brief flashes of discord and exasperation as they moved around each other seeking out breakfast. Immediately, he felt the weight of the anchor and how those small moments of negativity picked at their packbonds. He twitching, breath hitching as the need to fix the bonds overtook him, an inescapable urge to soothe or channel the irritation away so that the pack remained united. 

He was halfway to the door before realizing he was naked and desperately needed to relieve himself. Cursing, he diverted his path towards the dresser and retrieved a plain set of comfortable clothes. When he left the room, he forced himself to head to the refresher and to ignore the way the tethers connecting him to the others flared in indignation as he (temporarily) ignored them.

How did Wes  _ deal  _ with this all the time? Every little fight or difference of opinion made his heart race if he felt the packbonds start to fray even a little bit. His intervention wasn’t usually necessary to end the arguments or repair the bonds, but he felt it in his bones each and every time that the pack would crumble if he didn’t do something.

As he washed his hands, Tycho stared at his reflection and tried to figure out if his desire for Wes’s return was genuine or born out of a selfish desire to be relieved of the burden of being the pack anchor.

It was just so heavy. Tycho felt lost under the weight of holding onto the packbonds. It took so much time and energy to maintain them that he felt stripped of the very things that made him  _ him _ . He’d felt desires awakening yesterday that had been missing for months, had masturbated to sexual fantasies and Inyri fucking Hobbie… 

And yet, when Wedge and Gavin had returned, he’d immediately spread his legs, submitting himself his alphas for their pleasure. He’d kept begging them for more cocks, for faster thrusts, for a knot inside him. Hobbie had claimed his mouth, spilling his seed on his face when he came and all Tycho could think of was to keep sucking him off.

He’d gone from weaving a scene of sexual pleasure and imagining claiming Gavin’s anal virginity to being a creature of almost mindless lust and submission, craving only to be used to pleasure his pack. He’d taken two steps forward and three steps back.

He hated how they’d hurt Wes and he wanted him to understand how much they loved and cherished him. He just also wanted to be able to recognize himself in the mirror again.

That didn’t make him a bad person, right?

A new flare of irritation erupted in the packbonds, making him flinch. Hobbie’s usual morning apathy was prickling Inyri’s early riser tendencies, he realized after a moment. Slowly drying his hands, Tycho braced himself to join his pack. 

He loved them all, honestly, but the early morning squabbles left him with a headache every single day.

“Good morning,” Gavin said when he appeared, then offered him a mug of caf.

Nodding his own greeting, Tycho followed Gavin’s amused gaze and felt a brief urge to just shoot everyone and go back to sleep.

Looking more asleep than awake, Hobbie finished the last muffin in the small package he’d picked up the day before while Inyri glared at him with growing rage. Despite his sleepy appearance, Tycho could sense how sharp his mind was and how gleeful he felt at wrecking Inyri’s breakfast plans.

Hobbie could be such an  _ ass _ , honestly.

And Gavin was just  _ sitting there _ laughing inside instead of  _ doing something _ .

Setting down his mug, Tycho stalked over to the cabinet where Hobbie hid the treats he bought for himself. (It was too high for Wedge or Wes to check without effort, so they didn’t usually bother.) Sure enough, another set of muffins were tucked inside, along with a small bag of chokolate flavored cookies. 

Wordlessly, he tossed them all on the table in front of Inyri, grabbed his mug, and retreated to the living room while Inyri cackled and Hobbie sputtered. Several thumps sounded as he left the kitchenette and the squabble that followed sparked anew in his mind. 

He was going to  _ lose his damned mind _ if they didn’t fix this.

Wedge was sitting in an armchair, legs folded under himself as he read on a datapad. One of Hobbie’s ill gotten muffins was sitting half eaten on a plate balancing on the arm of the chair. Feeling more than a little peeved, Tycho grabbed that bite as he passed and popped it into his mouth before sitting down. 

Tycho stared up at the ceiling, head resting against the back of the couch as he heard the argument floating out of the kitchenette. Hobbie and Inyri were hissing at each other while Gavin egged them on as only an older sibling seeking amusement could.

“I got a message from Luke,” Wedge said quietly.

Pushing the argument and sizzling packbonds aside, Tycho raised his head. “How’s Wes?”

“Doing okay, apparently.” Wedge pressed his lips together for a moment. “Luke says it’s clear that we’re all missing data, though, so he wants us to come over so we can put all the pieces together and figure out exactly what happened.”

“Does Wes want to see us?” 

“Luke didn’t say, but given what all we learned yesterday, I can guess how he’s feeling.” Wedge looked and felt as miserable as Tycho did. The conversation they’d all had last night after their inadvertent afternoon nap had been revelatory, enraging, and heartbreaking. 

If they’d just been there when Wes had gone into heat, they might have been able to deal with the fallout from Distna together instead of having to piece it all together. It was going to be a long time before any of them forgave themselves for what had happened.

“When do we go over?” Tycho asked.

“As soon as we can.”

* * *

Judging by the way Wes was growing increasingly nervous and the glances he’d started shooting at the door, Luke assumed he could feel the others approaching. Wes had been on edge ever since Luke insisted they bring the others over to discuss what had happened after they’d liberated the Ciutric Hegemony.

“This is so kriffing stupid,” Wes whimpered, collapsing into an armchair. He ran shaking hands through his hair. “It’s the Rogues. I’ve known them, most of them, for almost a decade. I shouldn’t be this… nervous.”

“They hurt you, not on purpose, but it was wounding nonetheless,” Luke replied quietly. He squeezed Wes’s shoulder, making him jump slightly. Reassuringly, Luke pushed his affections through the bond, offering them to his packmate, and was rewarded when the rigid posture of Wes’s spine relaxed slightly.

Then the door chime sounded. Wes went stiff again, a flash of terror shooting across the tether.

Still holding onto his shoulder, Luke nodded at Artoo, who rolled over and opened the door.

The Rogues entered quietly, looking almost uniformly haggard and withdrawn. Guilt emanated off them all in waves, including (but not quite as powerfully) the two younger pack members Luke didn’t know as well. He’d met Inyri Forge once and vaguely remembered a much younger Gavin Darklighter hovering near Biggs back on Tatooine.

Hobbie, looking even more mournful than usual, reached into one of his pockets and pulled something out, which he tossed at Wes.

Startled, the omega caught it, fumbling with it until he found a tag. He burst out laughing, a short, somewhat hysterical sound that still managed to ease the tension in the room. Luke peered down and identified the item as a bag of candied nuts. The tag read:

**Sorry we drove you ‘NUTS’!**

“You’re doing puns now?” Luke asked. Hobbie simply shrugged and a faint smile quickly passed over his face. 

“While discussing things, I learned no one ever told Wes that any of you were alive,” Luke said once everyone was seated. All eyes turned to him. “Let’s sort that out, as well as any other lingering concerns from that time period. Who wants to start?”

There was a brief shuffle of bodies and a silent feeling of everyone thinking “Someone else start”, which perfectly mimicked every briefing Luke had ever led.

“Before that, on behalf of us all, Wes… We are so sorry. We didn’t mean to leave you alone during a heat or to make you feel unwanted.” Wedge hesitated, visibly turning words over in his head. He suddenly shook his head slightly, visibly discarding a thought. “We can go over how it happened later, but we are sorry. We love you, Wes, and we never meant to hurt you.”

Wes trembled briefly, hands tightening on the bag of nuts before nodding. “I know. I do know, it’s just-”   
  
“Facts first,” Luke interrupted. “We can get into the weeds of everything that’s happened but let’s all get on the same datafile first,”

“Facts, right,” Wedge muttered. Still looking at Wes, he hesitated, waiting for permission to speak. When Wes gave him a small nod, his shoulders slumped slightly in relief. “I met with General Cracken yesterday,” he began, and started detailing the conversation with the head of New Republic Intelligence and then his later meeting with the leader of Wraith Squadron, Face Loran.

Luke didn’t miss the flash of affection that swept through Wes when Wedge described the concern the other squadron leader had for him, nor the respect Wedge held for this ‘Face Loran’. It was good to see that Wes’s appreciation for Face’s offer of a new home wasn’t misplaced. Luke made a mental note to track him down and meet these Wraiths for himself.

“So that’s what Cracken was doing,” Wes muttered when Wedge finished speaking. Though displeased, he didn’t look surprised. He rolled his eyes when the others looked startled. “Cracken’s always been crooked. My mother told me he made her skin crawl and Dad seemed to agree with her, so I assumed he was pulling some kind of Intelligence shavitt. They’re insane, but my parents do have good instincts for that kind of thing.”

The older Rogues nodded thoughtfully while the younger pair looked confused, which wasn’t too surprising. Meeting Wes’s parents was always an Experience, and one they hadn’t had yet.

“Could… could you tell us some about what happened to you?” Hobbie asked. His cheeks flushed when everyone looked at him. “We know some of it, but it would help us understand if there was anything you were okay sharing.”

Wes sat still for a minute, eyes fixed on a far point on the wall. 

“I woke up alone in a hospital. It was a long time before I was thinking straight but I knew something was wrong. I was alone. Not just in the hospital ICU but in my head. I would get flashes every now and then of you, I think, but it was hard to tell. 

“Then some random spook from NRI came into debrief me. They told me you were all dead. And suddenly, those flashes I was getting felt like my own brain trying to trick me. To make me feel like I still had a pack when I… I didn’t.”

Wes’s face slowly grew pale and pinched as he spoke. Even with as mangled as his packbonds had become, his pain screamed at them. They felt every bit of his loss and loneliness, and the certainty he’d felt that his sanity was slipping away.

“Mirax said you stopped engaging with the doctors,” Gavin said quietly. 

Wes shrugged. “There didn’t seem to be any reason to, not with my pack dead and my body broken. And I kept feeling all of you every now and then. The more it happened, the less I trusted myself. Have you ever been in such a sorry state you don’t even believe what your brain is telling you? To spend all day hallucinating then realize you’ve been feeling or seeing things that aren’t there?”

“I have.” Tycho’s expression was pinched and pained. 

Wes looked at him, startled, then nodded slowly. “It’s awful. Nothing seemed real and I didn’t see any reason to continue to exist. I just wanted everything to stop. The only thing I was really feeling was frustration at the doctors, nurses, and medical droids that wouldn’t leave me alone long enough to find a way to kill myself and make all the ways I was hurting stop.”

His words sank through the room like a duracrete weight. The silence that followed stretched uncomfortably on before Wes finally continued.

“Well, then my parents arrived. Mom’s good at pushing my buttons and once she saw that state I was in, she smashed every one I had until I had no choice but to start feeling things again. Everytime I began to withdraw, she was there to harass or poke at me, keeping me jumping through hoops or wanting to beat my head through a wall from trying to follow her mental reasoning. And then Dad would ask her to go get food, call one of my siblings, or to just step outside. And… we talked. He understood better than most how I was feeling. I didn’t want to listen at first, but he’s nothing if not persistent. 

“In addition to that, the Wraiths kept coming by. Usually two of them at a time, they’d pop in during the brief moments my parents were gone. It made me feel like there really were people who cared about me besides my own parents. Iella was there sometimes, too, and Mirax and Booster stopped by every now and then. And somehow, even when I couldn’t understand what it was, I could still feel Luke. Once the initial shock faded, I realized I still had a least one small part of my pack. Eventually, I was healed enough that the doctors felt they could take me off suicide watch and that I leave the hospital, provided, of course, my parents stayed with me and I kept seeing a therapist. Going home was its own piece of hell, though.” 

Wes’s face had gone pinched and pale as he spoke, slowly, dispassionately describing his descent into depression and suicidal ideation. His mind, however was metaphorically shivering in pain as he detailed the still unhealed wounds. 

He pushed on, though. “Beyond that, I moped around the housing unit, fought with my mother, and made half-hearted attempts to start packing up everyone’s affects. No one came to visit me anymore and I just accepted that the galaxy was continuing on without me.” Shrugging, Wes leaned back. “A few days before the party, my sister went into labor early. Her husband was off-world and I knew she’d need help, so I told my parents to go back to Taanab. After I’d been alone for a while, I had the holonews on for noise and suddenly the show hosts were talking about Rogue Squadron and how everyone was alive and celebrating the mission that freed Isard’s prisoners. 

“I was… very angry. Angry that no one told me. Angry that I had to find out through the news. Angry that no one cared enough to think I’d want to know. It was amazing when all of you returned to Coruscant, but it also felt like you had just waited until it was convenient, when you wouldn’t have to go out of your way to find me again.”

Wes fell silent and folded his arms across his chest, clearly looking like he was done speaking.

The recitation had been horrifying to listen to and made worse because the Rogues knew they had contributed to it, however unintentionally or accidentally. Pain and loss and anger warred within Wes, his feeling of abandonment coming across the battered tethers like a knife twisting in their ribs. 

Tycho, though, could just barely make out something more. As heavy and burdensome as the pack anchor was, it did provide him with more insight into his packmates than ever before. 

He didn’t let himself overthink what he could sense, nor talk himself out of what he decided to do next. 

Without any hesitation, Tycho rose and slowly approached Wes, whose eyes went wide as he drew close. Making sure not to loom, Tycho leaned over and wrapped Wes in a tight embrace. The omega went rigid at the contact but Tycho didn’t let go. 

“I’m sorry. We’re all so sorry. It’s like the galaxy itself was trying to make sure everything hurt as much as possible. We didn’t mean to hurt you and didn’t want to hurt you. We love you and you can never be replaced. We’re lost without you.”

This was what Wes wanted. Not just apologies, explanations, and acts of restitution, but reassurance that he was loved and cherished, to be desired in every possible respect. He wanted his pack to reach out to him and work to soothe his wounds. 

Wes hadn’t taken a solitary seat to avoid being in contact with the pack he was at odds with. He’d done so out of fear of rejection, that they would shy away from him. The worst wound that had been inflicted on him was the sense of abandonment and disregard. To be forgotten and cast away in favor of something newer and better. 

Wes was the center of their pack, had always been the link binding them together. That broken connection was what needed to be healed. 

Almost tentatively, Wes’s hands crept onto Tycho’s back and fear rippled through their mangled packbond. Tycho immediately tightened his hold and rested his head against Wes’s. 

“We love you, so very much. That hasn’t changed one iota and never will.”

A flash of approval flitted past his senses and Tycho realized it was Luke. As always, the nearly dormant tether connecting them began to strengthen thanks to their renewed proximity. Angling his head slightly, he caught sight of Luke making a small motion with his hand and heard a sudden shuffling of bodies and furniture behind him. 

Tightening his hold on Wes, Tycho engaged his core and lifted the omega up off his chair, then rotated smoothly to spin them around. Sure enough, the low table has been moved from the couch, which itself had been pushed backwards, leaving the pilots sitting on it looking more than a little discombobulated. 

As Tycho lowered himself and Wes to the ground, the omega tightened his grip and pressed his face into Tycho’s neck. Small tremors were beginning to run through his body and Tycho suddenly flashed back to a similar scene almost a decade ago.

On that day, it had been him craving but fearing the comfort and safety of a pack. Happily, the others are shown him how wrong he’d been to be afraid and he’d never once regretted opening himself up to them.

Judging by the flickers of emotion he got from Luke, Hobbie, and Wedge, he wasn’t the only one remembering that moment. Wedge and Hobbie flowed off the couch and joined them, pressing close to Wes while Luke moved around to Gavin and Inyri, speaking to them in a voice too soft to be heard.

“Wes, we’re so sorry we hurt you,” Wedge said as he wrapped an arm around Wes’s waist. “And I’m so sorry that everything else hurt you so much. Tell us what you need and we’ll do it. We love you and we don’t want to lose you. You’re everything to us.”

“We’re here now,” Hobbie added, sitting close enough to lean against Wes’s back. “And we always will be.”

His pack’s love began to pour into him, acting like a soothing balm as the other Rogues stretched for him through the tethers. The tender feelings flowed through the packbonds, helping to strengthen and begin repairing the battered links. 

Still sitting with his face buried in Tycho’s neck, Wes burst into tears. The defensive shields he’d raised to protect himself lowered some, allowing the others to begin to truly feel him once more, and not just surges of strong emotion. 

The pain Wes had been carrying around was still present, but was quickly being swept away by the shockwave that was his pack’s affections. Relief and joy bloomed inside him as he was reassured of his importance to the others and the genuine affection they held for him. 

Watching carefully from nearby, Luke turned back to Gavin and Inyri. “As I said,” he said softly, “thank you for being so supportive during all of this.”

Gavin nodded, eyes drifting to the older Rogues. He and Inyri were both somewhat discomforted by the sudden emotional firestorm but they remained steadfast as they stood in support of their pack. “We want to help, however we can,” he said.

“This isn’t the end of this, though, is it?” Inyri asked shrewdly.

Luke nodded. “Wes’s wounds are deep and truly recovering will take time. The initial break is mending but doubts and worries will return soon enough. In addition to Wes’s fears, everyone is carrying heavy baggage. I think this incident will turn out to have shaken some things loose.”

“Wes isn’t the only one who needs time,” Gavin noted thoughtfully. He tipped his head to the side, thinking hard. 

“You have an idea?”

“The start of one.” A look of determination appeared on the alpha’s face. “It’s time to put our foot down. From this day forward, the Rogue Pack will be treated with the respect and consideration it deserves. It’s time for the pack to start claiming its rights and stop letting the New Republic abuse it.”

A small smile appeared on Luke’s face. “I think if anyone can manage to achieve that, it’s you.” Shaking his hands from of the sleeves of his robe, he gestured at the pair as he began to move towards the others. “You’re still pack. Your presence is welcome.”

The worst of Wes’s tears had ended when Luke knelt down between Wedge and Tycho, reaching out to gently touch Wes’s arm. When the omega looked at him, Luke leaned forward and pressed a gentle kiss on his forehead. Then, pulling back, he made a small gesture with his head, suggesting Wes turn to look the other way.

There, he found Gavin and Inyri hovering nearby. A faint blush cross Gavin’s cheeks and Inyri briefly rested her hand on Wes’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said simply. 

“We both are,” Gavin added.

They were only distant points of light in Wes’s mind, perceptible only through the packbonds connecting them to the other Rogues. Still, he couldn’t deny how earnest both Gavin and Inyri were, nor how accepting they’d been of his presence. There was genuine affection there, he realized, that went beyond the simple bonds of being in a squadron together. 

After a moment’s consideration, Wes tilted his head towards them, craning his neck just enough to extend it a bit further out.

Immediately, Gavin touched his hair, stroking the dark strands with careful fingers. Inyri added her hand into the mix, digging her fingers in enough to lightly scratch at his scalp. Delight was evident on Gavin’s face and Inyri was as relaxed as Wes had ever seen her.

Closing his eyes to enjoy the soft touches, Wes felt himself calming down more. Maybe they could become one pack after all. 

Tycho pressed a kiss against his cheek and gradually, the packbonds began to grow even stronger. 

The tethers still weren’t fully repaired and the pack anchor was still firmly in Tycho’s control. Happily, Wes no longer doubted he still had a place with the Rogues. There was no mistaking the love pouring out from the others, even if their mental voices were softer and further away than anything he’d ever felt from them. 

Closing his eyes, Wes fully immersed himself in the love of his pack. Gentle, familiar, (some some unfamiliar) hands touched him with soft, firm strokes, offering healing and comfort. He was completely surrounded and protected by his pack. 

It would take time, but they would all eventually heal from this. They were all together again and surrounded by love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The series will continue soon!


End file.
